The Peace On Earthbench Movement (POEM)
"Transform Waste into a Community Place."
The Peace On Earthbench Movement (POEM) empowers youth and community members to clean up the environment, repurpose their trash into a building material (bottle bricks), learn natural building techniques, and then create a communal gathering area— a Peace on Earthbench—where they can share music, stories, and life. The Earthbench effectively seals trash from entering the worlds' oceans and rivers while serving a clear artistic, educational, and social function. So far Earthbenches have been built in Ghana, Kenya, Bolivia, Guatemala, the Philippines, Argentina, throughout California, Utah, Colorado, Oregon, and Georgia, and other projects are being planned in New Zealand, Brunei, Ecuador, and more.
How will a bench create peace on earth? Peace On Earthbenches symbolize our collective desire for a more sustainable, more just, and more peaceful world. These benches empower youth to clean up the environment as they lead a community outreach campaign to collect discarded plastic bottles, stuff them with trash, and create a green building material—bottle bricks. These benches foster community interaction and collaboration. And when they are completed, they create a place for communal gathering—a reinvigoration of the commons. The larger vision is to eventually build 1000 Bottle Brick Benches for Peace around the world, and retain one bottle brick from each bench. These bottle bricks will be saved and eventually used to build a huge Peace on Earthbench in the Middle East, a global symbol of peace in the most volatile area in the world.
Learn more at http://www.earthbench.org
Or contact Brennan Bird at brennan@earthbench.org
¡Paz sea el viaje! (Peace be the journey!)
POEM~
