Mundo Verde or Munver is an environmental organization bringing more awareness to climate change and advocating for securing of the environment. Today, we got the chance to talk to a Panamanian engineer, who gave a presentation on how human actions have impacted the earth and ways to help reserve deforestation and climate change. Learning about this, the global glimpse crew decided to take action and be a part of the solution. We went down to La Playa Monagre, a beach in the neighboring town of Bayano, Los Santos about 30 minutes away from Chitre. As leaders of the day it was our responsibility to make sure that everyone was hydrated and ready to help clean the beach. First, we met with “Billy” a Florida native who has lived in Panama for the last couple of years. Talking to Billy, he made it known that in the past years he wasn’t the most environmentally conscious but now has made it his mission to give back to the earth and plant as many trees and prevent the damaging of the earth.

Afterwards Billy and his colleagues took us to the beach so we could see first hand the effects of pollution as we picked up the trash and plastic off the beach that had drifted onto the shore, this allowed us to experience the long lasting impacts of careless littering and water pollution. We also had the opportunity to visit Billy’s mangrove farm where he showed us the different types of trees they planted and sold in in order to repair the rapid deforestation in Panama.Everyone was truly touched by Billy’s passion towards repairing and saving Panama’s mangrove tree pollution, but unfortunately because of the duration it takes for the Mangrove trees to grow in addition to his old age, Billy may never get the chance to see the long-term results of his work.  

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Reflecting on the day, being Lider came with it perks and challenges. The biggest challenge for me was trying to wake up everyone up and making sure that everyone was ready in half an hour. Since the potential number of conversations are limitless, getting people to focus on one topic gradually became harder as the day progressed the people’s energy levels increased. Overall, I really did enjoy being the leader today. It was fun getting to remind people to hydrate and having people come up and ask questions when they needed help and us getting to help them. It was an amazing experience and is definitely something that I would like to do again.
-Aminata

To become the leader of the day was quite challenging for me as Im still transitioning into our daily routines and activities in Panama; because everyday is different its important as leaders of the day that we kept everyone on track and focus on the big picture and theme of the day in order for a true life lesson to occur as it  makes these experiences more memorable.
–Britney