A new school mini-bus was handed to Sharjah English School, winners of an Emirates-wide competition in support of a green environment, organised by the EnviroFone Schools Project and supported by the AW Rostamani Group.

The Urvan mini-bus was handed over at the Deira showroom of Arabian Automobiles, flagship company of AW Rostamani and exclusive dealer of Nissan, Infiniti and Renault vehicles.

“We were pleased by the response, to hear that school children across the UAE expressed their eagerness for a Green UAE by recycling their parents’ old and broken mobile phones. The numbers collected have been staggering,” said CEO of Arabian Automobiles Michel I Ayat.

Children from 250 primary schools have for the past three months taken part in a competition to collect and recycle as many old and broken mobile phones as possible, the exercise aimed at reflecting the importance of recycling and caring for the natural beauty of the UAE.

“At the beginning of the campaign AW Rostamani pledged a first prize of a new school mini-bus for the school that collected the most mobile phones. The response to this most generous offer was enormous, with schools throughout the UAE adopting the drive to go green,” said managing director of Envirofone Stuart Fleming.

The EnviroFone Schools Project was launched in November 2007 with the support of the Emirates Foundation, the Knowledge and Human Development Authority (KHDA) and the Ministry for Education.

EnviroFone drop boxes were installed at schools across the UAE to encourage pupils, parents and teachers to hand in old or unused mobile phones. The Project ran in conjunction with an environmentalist art competition.

The project has sparked such interest in environmental issues in the schools that many have now continued with their own recycling programmes, as well as school sessions on the importance of caring for the environment. – TradeArabia News Service