Climate Action Kenya Project #55824

Beautification & Greening of schools in Kenya

by Safal MRM FOUNDATION

Beautification & Greening of schools in Kenya

Project Report | Mar 24, 2023
Environmental Education to empower youth in Kenya

By Siprosa Rabach | Project Leader

MTTI Trainees working on the compost piles

The say that the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, the next best time is now and our mission of beautification and greening of schools sits right at the heart of this saying. After donating a record 5000 tree seedlings in 2022, we are looking to increase this number to 10000 this year, and expanding our areas of influence to include communities beyond Kilifi County.

The year 2023 has started with renewed gusto and we kicked off the initiative with an 8-day training on permaculture for our trainees at the Mabati Technical Training Institute (MTTI). In partnership with Herbivore Garden Centre, we take the trainees through the theory of permaculture and making compost, and the practical aspects of compost inspection and compost site selection. The prime motivation for this training is to teach the trainees the importance of waste management and turning organic waste into useful components of the farming cycle and eventually send them out into their communities as ambassadors of sustainable farming and responsible organic waste management. The training is also geared at creating a community showcase permaculture garden which will serve as a prototype for future kitchen gardens in the community.

We are happy to report that the first cohort of 31 students from the Motor Vehicle Mechanics Course who were trained made a total of 10 large compost piles, and will continue to work on the permaculture design and land preparation for the showcase garden over the 6-month program. Due to the success of the first round, we have launched two more introductory permaculture courses for student in the Electrical courses and we anticipate to successfully put 100 trainees through the program. We have also set up classes for our instructors from the Mabati Technical Training Institute (MTTI) to be included in the permaculture program. This will go a long way into involving the permaculture training into MTTI coursework on a long-term basis.

With the recent unpredictability of rain seasons and ravaging drought periods, the need for trees in Kilifi County has exponentially increased. The change has also affected the kitchen gardens and seedling projects, starved of ample supply of water due to our heavy reliance on rain water. Our initiative includes providing tree seedlings for primary and secondary schools as well as sensitizing the learners on the importance of afforestation, tree conservation and best practices in farming. This is an integral step in mitigating the adverse effects of climate change which the learners will bear witness to for years to come.

Looking ahead, we are keen on donating more trees to primary schools and high schools this year and hopefully double our donations and reach. We additionally plan to introduce introductory but practical compost making workshops in our school outreach program. To tackle the issue of weather unpredictability, plans are underway to provide solutions for water storage through rain harvesting and water pans.

All our work at the Safal MRM Foundation is possible because of your generous donations toward greening and beautifying schools in Kilifi, Kenya. Because of your contributions, we are empowering youth in our communities to harness their skills in agriculture and knowledge in conservation to make a change in their homes and create sustainable food solutions. With your continued support, we are committed to donating more seedlings to schools and developing an environmental conscious culture within communities in Kilifi County and beyond. Asante Sana (Thank you)

Donated fruit tree seedlings ready for planting

Our trainees are our community ambassadors

Tree planting involves students and instructors

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Nov 22, 2022
Beautification and Greening of schools Project.

By Siprosa Rabach | Project Leader

Mixed Fruit and Vegetable Garden by trainees

The Safal MRM Foundation's School Greening and Beautification project in Kilifi County Kenya has progressed well in the last three months.We are delighted to report that pupils, students and trainees who benefited from environmental conservation training are using the knowledge to plant trees and fruits in their school farms and home kitchen gardens.So far, the Mabati Technical training Institute managed to plant over 2000 fruit trees seedlings which will be ready for for distribution to the neighboring schools in the next one month.

To intergrate the global discussion on climate change,Safal MRM Foundation conducted training to educate the young people about the effects climate change by creating awareness on the negative effects of charcoal burning.The young people who participated in the various training are now aware that tree planting is important for combating global warming.Over 500 youth are currently engaged in tree tree planting to conserve and restore the environment in their communities.

At the Mabati Technical Training Institute, we expanded our fruit tree nursery by growing more fruit seedlings of Siena Siamea and Pawpaws.The seedlings will be distributed to youth from the local communities for replanting in their home gardens.We are delighted to report that some of fruits and vegetables planted in January of this year are ready for harvesting.These fruits and vegetables are used to feed our trainees while the surplus are sold to communities around the institute to cover part of the operating cost of training the youth from disdavantaged families.

Despite our effort,the prolonged drought in Kilifi County has negatively affected some of school kitchen gardens.Some of the fruit trees that we planted dried up because of lack of water.To solve this problem,we are engaging with strategic stakeholders with expertise and knowledge of restoring water catchment areas including rainwater harvesting and storage sustain our trees during the dry seasons.

Our appreciation to all our supporters and donors for enabling us to empower youth and children in Kilifi with knowledge about environmental conservation.We hope to continue to enhance the capacities of young people and the general public on the importance of tree planting by encouraging them to actively participate in tree planting to address some of the environmental challenges that are threatening the livelihoods and development of our communities.We call on you to continue to support this projects to improve air and water quality, provide food and help mitigate climate change in our country. THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT.

Passion fruits at almost ready for harvest

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Jul 25, 2022
Beautification and Greening of schools in Kilifi County in Kenya

By Siprosa Rabach | Project Leader

At Safal MRM Foundation, empowering communities to protect and care for their environment is an important part of our work.Since the beginning of this year, our focus has been on mentoring children and youth to engage in tree planting to green and beautify their learning environment.The main goal of the project is to train school going children and youth to understand value of trees in protection and care for the environment.

Together with our parent company Mabati Rolling Mills, we successfully rolled out tree planting drives in public schools and social places in Kilifi County in the coastal region of Kenya. By the end of June 2022,10 primary schools,1 secondary school and a police station in Kilifi participated in the tree planting initiative. We managed to plant over 4000 trees which will be cared for by the young learners through the 4 K clubs in the respective schools.

We are also happy to report that some of our staff took time to mentor and educate learners on the effects of climate change and the importance of environmental conservation.This is in line with our commitment to promote solutions to safeguard and conserve the environment and to contribute to the sustainability of our work.We have recently replanted the tree nursery at the Mabati Technical Training Institute to produce more seedlings which will be distributed to more schools in the coming months.We hope to mobilize additional resources from friends and partners like you to repair the old liner dam at the Mabati Technical Training Institute to harvest and store rainwater water during the upcoming rainy season in October - December to irrigate our garden and continusly produce more tree seedlings.

We wish to thank all our supporters and partners and reaffirm our commitment to the sustainaibility of our work by empowering our children and youth to protect and conserve our environment.Together we can secure future generations by investing in increasing the number of trees in our communities to reduce the impact of climate change.

Fruit trees growing at the MTTI orchard

Our current liner dam that needs repair

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