Saturday, May 30, 2009

Community Sustainable Initiative - Damansara Jaya

Damansara Jaya was the PJ Best Neighbourhood Award winner for its inception year. Since year 2000, community recycling centre was established and surprisingly the initiative is still going strong until now. This is truly a sustainable community initiative. From a mere buy back centre, the recycling has developed into a collection centre in which many of the public donated money to the Residents Association's social fund. From a centre collecting the conventional types of recyclable items, it accommodates other type as well such as computer, beverage cartoon and spectacles.

The neighbourhood has also shown another long term project, namely the security scheme. More than 80% of household participated in this scheme. It is a huge different compared to 30% when it first started 10 years ago.

Apart from that, the Association has also gone into self-sustaining his newsletter. Sponsorship and advertisement were solicited for the publication of newsletter. This has relieved the financial commitment for the Association and allow them flexibility to organise other activities such as dedicated programmes for senior citizens.

One of the good practices is to convert a plot of vacant land, used to be site for illegal waste dumping into a herbs garden. The garden with over 30 plant species is used by residents for daily and education purpose.

Of course, the improving of the residents association's office is also another step worth mentioning. The office with hall annexed to it is the centre for various social and recreational activities. It was used to the fullest.

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