We picked up where we left last term with our school climate workshops and tree planting at Chishiko Primary School in Chongwe where we spoke to 100 students and planted 25 Musiniga (Syzygium Cumin) trees. Read about out first one here.

This initiative is sponsored by the Polination Project, who are also supporting us to plant 15,000 trees in Chongwe.

After our climate talk, we choose 75 students and divided them in to groups of three, with each group planting one tree. Each group will take care of this tree until they graduate.

Chishiko was a community school. It was recently upgraded to a primary school in year.

The school is one of the few schools in Chongwe’s Chalimbana area that caters to hundreds of students who often have to walk many kilometres and sit in an overcrowded class room to learn.

The school faces many challenges, one of which is a lack of classrooms. Because of this we held our climate awareness workshop outside.

The climate awareness workshop involved explaining to students what climate change is and how they can play a part in reducing it. We also talk about the importance of planting trees and why protecting our environment is key to sustainable living.

The trees we planted, musiniga (Syzygium cumin) have several uses. They are popular for their fruit, a sweet dark berry that has many qualities. FOr instance, it helps control diabetes diabetes, manage chronic cough, asthma and chest pains. It is also effective for stomach cramps and helps prevent diarrhea.

The tree grows to a height of 30 metres at full maturity and provides shed.

We are going to go back to Chishiko Primary School to monitor the musiniga trees and also talk to the students about climate change and see if they remember the lessons from our climate workshop.