Waterloo Pharmacy students gift tree on behalf of the School
In an age where most items are disposable, Waterloo Pharmacy students and Green Team champions Kyla Agtarap (Rx2023) and Maher Jibrini (Rx2023), gifted the School of Pharmacy a tree as a thank you gift.
Kyla Agtarap and Maher Jibrini attended the University of Waterloo Sustainability Office awards ceremony to accept on the School’s behalf the Silver Sustainability certificate.
Agtarap and Jibrini were the first students to be a part of the Green Team at the School.
With a sister majoring in Environmental Science, Agtarap was exposed to sustainable living practices in her personal life early on. It was experiencing the versatility of a paperless pharmacy management system during co-op that sparked her interest in building sustainable practices in pharmacy.
Instead of reinventing the wheel completely, which is difficult to do, I wish to find one way to do one thing correctly that will work long-term that is sustainable.
Kyla Agtarap at Waterloo Pharmacy
Jibrini was inspired by Agtarap. Watching her trailblaze doing work with the Green Team made him realize that from a pharmacist’s perspective, he can incorporate sustainability into the healthcare field, within pharmacy and his patients’ lives along with his own.
What we do now impacts the future. Ensuring that future generations, whether it be my own or others, get to experience everything we experience and more.
Volunteering on the Sustainability Community
For both students, thinking about sustainable practices led them to join the Green Team at Waterloo Pharmacy. Building greener practices in the realm of pharmacy and the School is important to them both in order to live a sustainable life personally and professionally.
Jibrini’s goal was to bring awareness to other pharmacy students to familiarize them with practices in which they can partake to make their pharmacy career more sustainable. Jibrini laid the groundwork for a legacy tree project to leave a lasting mark for all future pharmacy graduates.
Maher Jibrini.
Agtarap created events that ensured future student involvement within the Green Team to give future students the same opportunity. She implemented the battery drive, where old batteries were collected for proper disposal.
A rewarding and sustainable experience
For both Agtarap and Jibrini, connecting with other people on the Green Team gave them a sense of community within the School. The support from faculty and staff to implement their ideas and plans was a positive and rewarding experience.
We were surprised how little outreach initially existed for the students but appreciated how the sustainability committee facilitated the students’ involvement at the School by collaborating with Kyla and I.
Leaving their legacy behind
Agtarap and Jibrini donated trees to each other through Forestry Ontario as a thank you gift. When thinking about giving back to the School and the GreenTeam, they realized gifting a tree is both personal, sustainable and symbolic of the impact the committee made on them.
For anyone looking to make lifestyle changes to lead a more sustainable life, Agtarap and Jibrini have some advice. They urge everyone to do their research, think about what you are buying and throwing away and most importantly start small. Starting small can allow one to incorporate sustainability into their lives, and eventually it will grow over time to last during their lifetime.