Nauru Department of Commerce, Industry and the Environment (CIE), under the supervision of Communications officer Mr Nodel Neneiya, conducted an Eben Omo workshop on Wednesday, 6 June.
Eben Omo, launched in March 2018, is a nationwide, ‘homegrown’ environmental-practice campaign on Nauru, targeting five major community action themes; grow local food; fish right; reduce, reuse and recycle; never litter; and conserve water.
Eben Omo serves as the public awareness and promotional arm of the Ridge to Reef (R2R) initiative, and has partnered with Fiji-based, not-for-profit behavioural change agency, cChange.
The workshop was designed as an interactive session to discuss campaign details, collaboratively identify best practice for communicating the campaign from a range of stakeholder perspectives and experience, and to begin the selection process for the next round of Eben Omo ‘champions’.
The champions are community representatives who lead by example through a public pledge of measureable actions to a specific Eben Omo theme.
Twenty workshop participants were in attendance across both government and non-government sectors, including tourism, public health, agriculture, waste management, environment and international waters divisions of CIE and their district-based technical service officers (TSOs), fisheries, EcoNauru, Nauru Private Business Sector Organisation (NPBSO), as well as community leader representatives.
With a range of promotional materials and merchandise already printed, workshop participants were asked to brainstorm ways their organisation could make the best use of these items in their context, and identify any anticipated hurdles to getting the Eben Omo message effectively delivered.
The final task of participants was to suggest candidates for the next round of Eben Omo champions.
Among the criteria, is the ‘3I’ criterion; a candidate must be influential, inspiring and interesting.
As such, proposed Eben Omo champions included entrepreneurs, sports people, youth and elders, fisher persons, members of the judiciary, church leaders, and those with cultural, traditional and language expertise.
The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) is sending a communications specialist to Nauru within the next two months to further consolidate stakeholder training in promotion of UNDP initiatives on Nauru, including Eben Omo.
Reduce, reuse, re-purpose, recycle
• say ‘no’ to plastic bags - BYO instead
• wash and reuse bottles and containers
• re-purpose your rubbish; turn tyres into planters
• sell or give away second-hand clothes and other items
• make a compost bin for leaves, branches, grass & food scraps to feed your kitchen garden
What’s your Eben Omo pledge?