I am just one person. Whatever I do in this big world, I am sure that it won’t get recognized. I’m a drop in the ocean, so why should I even care? Why should I live my life trying to solve something that I can’t? Is it even my job to do it?

These are common thoughts by people when seeing litter. Would we accept those kinds of thought in a workplace? How desirable are employees with no work moral or no initiative taking? A strong leader would address this core issue immediately.

Last weekend, together with Get Trashed Malta and The Gaia Foundation, I organized the World Cleanup Day in Malta with over 60 sites being cleaned during 4 hours.

The first thing I did when I arrived at home was to lay down on my bed to scroll through my social media feed for photos from the cleanup. There were so many posts showing people smiling and having fun and it was a fresh breeze in a sometimes grey society. I had tears rolling down my cheek out of joy, because this is how life should be and could be if we all did our part.

The empowerment people feel when they are part of something big is priceless and it’s hard to explain to people that haven’t experienced it. When you empower people, they always achieve more than you ask for. I for example ask for the leaders of the cleanups to stay for 3 hours and I end up with whole groups of people spending a full day together and ending the events with drinks and mingling. Not because they have to, but because they feel that they made a difference and humans instinctively enjoy that feeling.

It’s not the first time I hear that cleanups are useless and I will once again remind you all of my stand on that topic. The part where we clean up is the smallest one. The social networking, the feeling of empowerment and the fact that we unite is what creates the strong ripple effect that in Malta now is too strong to be stopped.

Some may call me naïve for keeping my hope up of a cleaner and greener Malta and I partly understand them. I do agree that we at times have Goliath against us, but if we never equip David with the bravery and the tools needed to beat him then how can we expect him to win?

We need to feed the people with a strong will to strive towards a better Malta, to not be satisfied with mediocre so called solutions. We need to also provide the tools for this to happen and motivate David, the people, to keep fighting.

The only way to lose the fight is to lay down the weapons and pity ourselves. That is why I stay positive and why I keep on fighting, I refuse to surrender. We need the environment for us to survive, so for me there is no other way to do this than keep on fighting. It has become a fight for survival.

Just like in Peter Pan, the happy thoughts are the ones that takes us to the stars. We have a choice to make and we better make it sooner rather than later. The next generation shouldn’t have to clean up our mess - it is very unfair of us to even consider that as an option.

I spoke to 140 primary school students last Friday and let me tell you this, there is hope. If you don’t see it, you need to look closer. Don’t sit around waiting for it to come to you, served on a silver plate. If you feel that no one cares about environment in Malta, what do you base that assumption on? Look it up and you will find lots of proof that it is the total opposite.

I have never seen such a strong and fast moving movement like in Malta, it’s spreading faster than fire at the moment. If you however concentrate too much on the negative, you will miss all the positive things. Time to choose which side you want to acknowledge.

Don’t sit around waiting for everyone else to solve it all. Yes, some are paid to do a certain job like street cleaners or doctors. That doesn’t mean that we, as citizens, are forbidden from helping out by picking up a piece of litter, of performing CPR on a person in need of it. We all play our roles and the world is our home. We need leaders in this country that promote empowering in all forms.

The role of being a leader is not to get other people to follow you but to empower others to lead.

Leaders eat last and walk the walk.