JEDDAH, 14 May 2007 — For the first time ever, Jeddah Municipality has initiated a yearlong campaign entitled “We Are All Responsible” to be held every Sunday with an aim of nurturing the spirit of collective responsibility toward the city and society in general.
Jeddah Mayor Adel Fakieh inaugurated the initiative at his office yesterday and said that the campaign would start with municipality officials and contractors, who handle public projects. The first stage of the campaign aims to improve the standards of municipality services and attitudes of municipality officials at all levels, said Fakieh. He added that a competition for the most responsible municipal official has been launched to develop a competitive spirit among officials and to encourage them to perform their best.
Fakieh said that the campaign aims to tackle various problems including those of litter, graffiti, vandalism, unsocial pasting of posters on city walls and garbage digging. The mayor said that instead of having strict rules and regulations, Jeddah Municipality is aiming to correct people by spreading awareness through the campaign, which involves a number of events that carry the message “Let’s Unite to Develop Our City.”
The first phase of the campaign aims to target the municipality’s 1,500 employees and would involve schoolchildren, including those at foreign and international schools. Youngsters are also said to participate in many events including that of cleaning beaches, preserving monuments and cleaning mosques, public parks and walls that have been defaced with graffiti.
Ahmad Al-Ghamdi, head of the Media Department at the municipality, said that the mayor would participate in a cleaning event today near the Nawrus roundabout on the Corniche. He added that the event would also see volunteers cleaning graffiti from the area. All of Jeddah’s known graffiti artists are said to be participating in the event with the mayor.
