1 Sep. 2011 Uganda
Tree planting at schools gets underway. It is expected to improve nutrition and economic effect.
Students and trees
Tree plantation
A tree planting project first started in 2007 with the goal of preserving the environment and creating an income for local people. By 2010 it was being conducted in five primary schools supported by HFW. From September 2010, 130 fruit trees, such as orange and mango, seedlings, and neem oil tree seedlings were provided in each school. Two students at each school were made responsible for growing each tree.
Before providing the seedlings, two students and two teachers from each school participated in training at a nursery which has been supported by HFW in the Lugzi parish since 2009, and then at the nearby Ugandan National Forestry Center. For students who had never been away from their villages, this seemed to have been a very refreshing experience. And as for the teachers, a typical response was the following: “As a science teacher, I often lecture on tree grafting or the way to grow trees; however, because I have never really cultivated trees myself, I was not very confident. Thanks to this training I was able to put this into practice and now I am more confident.”
It is expected in a few years, if there is a harvest, that this project may be used to improve nutrition in the school lunches, and if there is an especially big harvest that it can be sold to provide funds for buying teaching materials.
Student watered the mango tree.
Students at each school were made responsible for growing each tree.
