11A – Plénière d’ouverture de la 13e édition : EGO IMPERIUM, j’ai le pouvoir de changer le monde
Face to face with Heidi Solba
Heidi Solba is a protective person who is today the president of Let’s Do It! World, an organization dedicated to environmental protection and dealing more specifically with the human’s waste. She is also the initiator of the World Cleanup Day, a project born in 2018. The World Cleanup Day happens on a 24-hour period, where people gather to pick up trash across the globe.
This year’s edition took place on September 21, started from Fiji and crossed all the time-zones to end up in Hawaii. Over 20 million individuals were involved in 180 countries to collect trash. Much caffeine must have been needed for her on that day : “I was awake for 36 hours during the World Cleanup Day. I was in tears when I received all the photos and videos of the event and realized the fellowship existing across the world.”
© Maxime Dufour Photographies
A trying day for her that was filled by many emotions and hope for the future. After a second edition that was even more successful than the first one, Let’s Do It! World’s president is very ambitious for the years to come. She is already preparing herself for the next edition and wants even bigger scores. Her team hopes to reach implication numbers that go from 5 to 10% of the national populations.
Even though they claim themselves as an apolitical organization, Let’s Do It! World is starting to work more and more with governments to make things move. They also have strong confidence in local waste centrals and smaller organizations. Heidi, perfectly fitted in the Ego Imperium theme, believes that anyone can make a difference. Every gesture counts, there is no action that has no impact. “We believe that small, big or great ideas can make the change in the world.” Everyone is responsible for the climate change and anyone can take action and have a positive impact. She trusts the youth and perceives the newer generations as the change-makers. They are the ones that consume massively ,but are most importantly the ones that can reduce their consumption and be the essence of alternative ideas and actions.
A sentence in her speech caught my attention: “Positive energy is attractive to positive energy.” What did she mean by that?
Heidi is convinced that the World Cleanup Day acts like a virus. A positive virus that will spread itself across the planet. Acting as a role model shapes the personal behaviors and will also influence other people’s actions over time. Small actions can create huge virtuous cycles. She cherishes the idea that a person participating to the World Cleanup Day will never be littering again.
Heidi engages herself to keep on being dedicated to the World Cleanup Day. She desires to expand the concept in as many countries as possible and carries a very optimistic view on the “positive virus”.
Logan GUM
@GumLogan
