Dear friends,
Green Shield is a non for profit non-governmental organization (N.G.O) which is dedicated to ACTING and not reacting on Environmental, Social and Animal Right issues. Our goal is to educate people, because our belief is that if the citizen is informed and educated on crucial issues then she or he will elect an informed politician, but more importantly will act on every day life issues and in parallel give a positive instead of negative addition to our surrounding.
Informed people have a positive impact on the planet by reducing, re-using and recycling their waste.
Informed people don’t waste their resources and they don’t pollute.
Informed people are less liable to get addicted to dangerous substances such as heroin, cocaine, crack cocaine, ecstasy, alcohol, nicotine etc.
Our N.G.O was founded in 1998. Our headquarters are in Nicosia, Cyprus and for the last 6 years we have been publishing a colored, 40 page monthly newspaper in Greek.
Our newspaper has been approved by the pedagogical institute of the Cypriot Ministry of Education as a tool for environmental education.
On September 10th 2003 we inaugurated our environmental-cultural centre “GAIA” in the old part of Nicosia, after a six month renovation of an old mansion by volunteers of our movement.
The centers goal was the education of the youth on environmental and drug use issues.
“GAIA” employed rehabilitated drug users contributing seriously to their social replacement on a 24-7 supervision basis. The public had access to a library with 3,000 books covering topics such as environment, alternative medicine, peace, human rights etc. Our space was used for the promotion of art and encouraged bi-communal friendship.
On the 1st of May 2004 in collaboration with the Minister of Justice Mr. Doros Theodorou, the sponsorship of the Cyprus Tourist Organization and Ministry of Education we organized the 24 hour festival “Oxygen Valley” at Xyliatos. Our goal was to attract between others, users or people who were in danger of becoming one, to an environment attractive to them and thus becoming a connective link between them and society; nearly sixty such young volunteers worked for six months helping to set up the event.
Unfortunately we were used as bait.
A raid was organized by 40 policemen where in between 2000 participants they tracked and arrested 3 users with a total of 1gr of Marijuana, 0.2gr Cocaine and half an ecstasy pill.
On July 1st 2005 the Cypriot police released an announcement stating that the festival “Oxygen Valley 2” was illegal discouraging the youth of the island to participate threatening with arrests and in parallel, after filing a 100 page report they are taking us to court until this day. On the 12th of September however of the same year when “GAIA” burnt to ashes, and we told them we suspected a malicious act (the war on Heroin and the promotion of bi-communal friendship creates enemies), they told us verbally in 8 minutes that it was a cigarette accident.
Apart from “GAIA” and the publication of our newspaper we have been involved in many actions and a few reactions.
1) We gather used clothes, shoes, toys, and give them to people in need (drop off Kyriakou Matsi street 50e, 1082 Nicosia (we sent 6 containers of aid to Sri-Lanka after the Tsunami).
2) We have been active members of the “Stop the War” movement.
3) We have planted thousands of trees and given tens of thousands to the general public.
4) We have given thousands of cloth bags to the public with our campaign “use cloth not plastic”.
5) We have given lectures about the “inconvenient truth”, long before Al Gore.
6) Green Shield Youth is a complete member of the Cyprus Youth Council and the European Youth Forum.
7) We have campaigned vigorously for the de penalization of drug use (users are victims, not criminals), drug education in high schools, legal separation of substances by classes on the health risk by use and the alteration of penal sentences by a scaled increase according to the drug sold.
8) We have an internet site www.prasini-aspida.org (which will be improved very soon).
The day GAIA burnt put a temporary end to our action. Now, nearly 3 years later we have licked our wounds, have become wiser and have returned stronger.
Dear Friends,
The Armageddon is there for us to stop it, or else we wouldn’t be umans.
The least you can do is invite your friends to join the group. The most you can do is what you cannot do.
The Youth of Green Shield Movement
Filed under: About Green Shield
