“Garbage or Resource? A Dominican Republic Experience”, a short film produced by GFDD/Funglode directed by Ms. Natasha Despotovic, GFDD Executive Director, was screened to students of the Instituto Iberia in Santiago de los Caballeros, Dominican Republic. The screening took place at the historical educational center’s library on February 24th 2015, and also included a presentation of GFDD’s recycled art program ReCrearte by its Coordinator, Bertha Santana.

Mr. Victor Martinez, Director of Instituto Escuela, welcomed GFDD Staff to the center and with warm regards opened the event, followed with an introduction about the Dominican Republic Environmental Film Festival (DREFF) and GFDD’s short “Garbage or Resource? A Dominican Republic Experience”, by Maria Victoria Abreu, GFDD’s Socioeconomic Program Manager. After the screening and the presentation of ReCrearte, students and teachers were very proactive in a lively discussion on the importance of recycling to our planet’s sustainability and how to make it happen in our every day’s lives.

Approximately 85 high school students participated in this activity and were fascinated by topics related to the environment and entrepreneurship with a sustainable approach. They also showed a lot of interest in GFDD’s Globo Verde Dominicano Award, aiming to produce their own environmental audiovisual works to submit to it this year.

After the discussion, Instituto Iberia showed GFDD Staff members their own short video on a recent excursion to a poor community in the countryside where students and teachers helped improve an unfortunate house and interacted with natural resources.

This activity is part of GFDD Year Round Environmental Film Screenings under the Dominican Republic Environmental Film Festival (DREFF) initiative. This year DREFF will take place September 8-13 in fourteen cities of the Dominican Republic.