Adem Inovejas

Founding Story

Get to know Adem, Project Blue's founder.

I'm Adem Inovejas, currently a second-year BS Mechanical Engineering student in DLSU - Manila. My hometowns are Sinait and San Esteban, Ilocos Sur, but I grew up in Manila; my family decided to stay here for the COVID-19 lockdown due to safety reasons, and we haven't been back in Manila ever since March of 2020. I really enjoy going to beaches and doing water activities like surfing and diving. With this, I spend a lot of my time in beaches, and what I've long noticed was that there was an alarming number of trash by the shore — even the lesser known beaches.

How it started

I founded it on my birthday as a mere cleanup idea that turned into an organization after realizing that cleanups aren’t enough and that we have to be more sustainable. Though for our first project, we did a cleanup on my favorite beach here and we donated three trash bins for the beach and held a post-cleanup talk about sustainability with the barangay officials. I started posting about my birthday plan on my Instagram, and I'm really thankful for the support I got!


At first glance

Taken from my statement during the first days of setting up this organization: **"*I haven't had the guts to start something like this up until now, because I believe that there is no better time than now, and that I couldn't go to the beach anymore and still do nothing about the trash that I see.