Kilifi is a county found in the Coastal region of Kenya. It is rated as an arid and semi-arid location where the rainfall that is received is not enough to enable farmers to plant crops and keep their livestock all year in. After spending over four years in Kilifi and visiting one hundred schools in the County I discovered that the leaders in the schools located in the deep villages in the County still suffer from Malnutrition. This is due to the fact that the community cannot be able to provide a balanced diet to school-going children. One reason is the crops planted and the ones which are affordable in the food market are mostly starch that is Maize and Cassava. The students not only suffer from malnutrition but also lack a safe space from the hot sun to rest during the hot sun in Nov to Feb. Most of the schools do not have shade and fruit trees for the students to sit under and eat.
Onemilliontrees4kilifi Seeing that Kilifi County should be at per in achieving SDG 1 (No Poverty), SDG 2 (Zero Hunger), SDG 4 ( Quality Education), and SDG 13 (Climate Action), we started the goal of planting fruit trees in over 400 schools in the region. We choose schools because schools have vast land which is not to be used, they also have students who will help in looking after the trees and lastly, most of them have water sources which will be used to water the trees during the extremely harsh conditions. Schools make this project very sustainable.
The importance of microclimate schools includes:
- The fruit trees will provide fruit in the future to the school-going children, this will help reduce the rate of Children suffering from Malnutrition thus helping the region achieve SDG 2 ( Zero Hunger)
- By having fruits from the planted trees in schools, the children will be motivated to go to school thus increasing the rate of children attending school. Most of the students fail to attend school due to a lack of something to put in their mouths. We therefore will achieve SDG 4 (Quality Education)
- Fruit trees will help to restore the degraded land and restore the damaged ecosystem in the region. Fruit trees are known to have flours that attract bees and butterflies which are the main agents of pollination. More pollination results in more trees growing thus increasing the level of rainfall in the region. We refer to it as calling back the rains
- By involving the young generation in tree planting we are able to shape the future generation in the matters of environmental conservation and ecosystem restoration.