Tree Planting at Schools
In our first week in Zimba, we went with Passwell to two plant nurseries to purchase fruit trees. In total, we got 1400 of:
-Orange
-Sweet Apple
-Mexican Apple
-Guava
-Grenadine
-Walnut
-Chestnut
-Jackfruit
-Avocado
-Mango
-Papaya
The purpose of the trees was to provide them with fruits both for the students and staff and for selling to purchase much-needed supplies like textbooks and school uniforms, to bring understanding of the importance of reforestation, and to show them how much of a difference they could make in their community as a small group with a few trees.
Delivering the Trees
With instruction from Passwell, each school had pre-dug holes for the trees and were eagerly awaiting our arrival. Kocebuka had pre-arranged for 15 schools to receive the trees, but over the course of the week we only had time to visit 7 schools. Over the next couple months, Passwell would have to deliver the rest of the trees to the remainder of the schools.
At each school, we gave a brief talk on sustainability, climate change, and the importance of trees, both locally for them and their school, and globally. We were happy to discover that the students seemed to have a good understanding of not only climate change, but also the link between deforestation and the erratic rain patterns in the region. After teaching the women’s groups and realizing that many of them never had the opportunity to go to school, it was really incredible to see the difference in quality of the education system. We left the schools with high hopes that the fruit trees would bring them revenue and teach them about sustainability practices.
-Katie
