Green Gold Social on Friday the 4th of April started the school climate awareness and tree planting project at African Vision of Hope (AVOH) school in Chongwe.
The initiative, which will involve 450 students and will see 250 fruit trees planted at 10 schools in Chongwe, aims to equip school going children with the skills and knowledge to take climate action.
Speaking at the climate workshop and tree planting exercise at AVOH, Green Gold Social Founder Hope Mkunte said the tree planting was meant to give students hands on training in nature conservation. “Today, we are planting 25 musiniga trees (Syzygium cumini) which provide shade as well as fruit once they mature. These trees are native to Zambia so they will survive with vey little care once their tap roots are deep enough on the soil. This exercise will give the students a practical lesson of how they can take care of trees.”
AVOH is also the first school that will have a nature club so that students can participate in many more nature conservation activities as they progress in their studies. “So far, we have 45 students in the AVOH nature club” says Mr Hope Mkunte. “With the help of Mr Zimba, a teacher assigned to Green Gold Social for the school initiative, we are going to be involving the students in many more activities such as seed collection so that they can learn about the different native trees Zambia has that people use every day.”
Mr Zimba said he was excited that AVOH was the first school that Green Gold Social choose to partner with for the school climate initiative. “As we all know, last year we experienced a total crisis in terms of rainfall pattern, we had no rains. So we are trying to improve this situation so that we can plant more trees. With this initiative, we are growing Zambia and Africa and making it a better world.”
Grace Kautini, one of the students in the nature club, says she and her fellow students have learned the importance of planting trees and how it fights deforestation. “We are looking forward to going on seed collection hikes with Green Gold Social so that we can replace the trees that have been cut down.”
Green Gold Social will be going back to AVOH when schools open next term to conduct a second climate workshop with the nature club before starting other activities.
The School climate awareness and tree planting initiative is part of Green Gold Social’s Chongwe Reforestation Project where the the NGO is going to plant 50,000 trees every year to replace those that have been cut down for charcoal in three villages in Chongwe.
Green Gold Social is a Chongwe community-driven reforestation initiative planting indigenous trees and helping farmers become climate resilient through agroforestry.
