Climate Action in Education: Planting 10,000 Trees

Dear Donor,

Thank you so much for your continued support of our Climate Action Project!

In our last report, we had shared with you the progress we had made at Central Primary School. Over the past few months, we were able to expand the work of this project to include Elimu de Ark Primary School and some private schools. In this report, we will be highlighting some of the work we started with Elimu de Ark which has now culminated in their own mini botanical garden in their school!! And thanks to the long rain season in Kisumu, the garden is thriving!! We will also be sharing some updates on the trees we planted last year and how they are doing!!

How it all started at Elimu de Ark

Earlier this year, the students of Grade 4-8 from Elimu de Ark visited the RKF Mini Botanical Garden to attend their first set of Climate Action Workshops. During these workshops we learnt and discussed the importance of becoming stewards of the surroundings we live in. We discussed how each one of us, whether at school or home, had a role to play in climate action. The students also completed fun and engaging activities like a scavenger hunt, garden tour and soil experiments in which they learnt about different types of soil and how to create optimal soil conditions for tree planting. Each student also received a seedling of their own to grow and care.

They then formed six different groups: Champions, Tigers, Achievers, Salamander, Lion and Purple Lilies! Each group received a small seed bed which would be their collective responsibility.

Seed Bed Update

The seed beds each group was assigned were showered with love, care and water! Four weeks after the workshops, we visited them and as you can see in the picture shared below, their okra seedlings looked healthy and would be ready for transplantation in a few weeks.

We were so impressed with the enthusiasm of the students at Elimu de Ark, we decided to do a special field trip to a very unique lakeside garden in Dunga with them to grow their interest in tree planting and environmental stewardship.

Lakeside Garden Visit

This was an incredible day out, next to the lake surrounded by nature.

Apart from being fun, it was also a day full of learning. Our teacher of the day, Jared, took us around the garden and taught us about various plants we hadn’t seen before. Not only that, we also learnt how to propagate them!

One propagation process that surprised and awed us was coconuts! We learnt that it takes about 6-8 months for a coconut seed to sprout. And the incredible amount of patience (10+ years) you need before you can harvest.

Our day ended with a beautiful boat ride in Lake Victoria where we learnt more about the biodiversity of the area: like the birds, hippos, crocodiles, trees etc. in and around the shores of the second largest freshwater lake in the world.

Elimu de Ark’s Garden

All of this led to the beginning of an incredible process where we partnered with a local corporate to create Elimu de Ark’s very own mini botanical garden. This incredible garden transformation deserves a report of its own, which we will be sharing next (stay tuned!). In this report, we are sharing a sneak peak of the transformation of one section of the garden where students planted a variety of vegetables.

More than ever, growing your own food is becoming a universal practice that many are taking up and benefitting from. Kitchen gardens are now becoming a common source of food for many families, especially since the lockdowns. Apart from that, one of the growing concerns is that many children don’t actually know where the food they are consuming comes from.

As part of our Community Garden project at Elimu De Ark, we installed 3 vegetable patches, 2 vertical gardening bags and 1 conical garden. The bags and patches were planted with leafy green seedlings such as spinach, cabbage, sukuma wiki (collard greens) and fruits and vegetables like broccoli, egg plants, capsicum, strawberries etc. During this process, Team RKF trained the students and teachers on how to set up, plant, harvest and take care of their kitchen garden.

The good news: the spinach seedlings that were planted are now ready for harvest and will be cooked for all students during one of their lunches! We couldn’t be happier!!

Tree Update

Thanks to your incredible generosity last year, we planted several papaya trees and a banana tree during Earth Day 2021 in our mini botanical garden. Just a little over a year has passed and we are so delighted to share that our papaya trees are now fruiting and ready for harvest! Our banana tree just produced its first bunch that we are watching every single day in anticipation of the mature fruits. Asante Sana for the amazing support you gave this incredible project. The mini botanical garden has been a wonderful site of giving back to nature, teaching and learning… much more than we had ever anticipated.

Story from our Volunteer

Ruth was a part of our Volunteers Program last year. During her six weeks with RKF she was a part of the volunteers’ team that packed and distributed more than two thousand education packs to students in Kisumu.

She says, “My six weeks began in July 2021 and I had some of the best and memorable moments. I learnt a lot about The Rahul Kotak Foundation and its programs. The environment program helped me learn botanical and common names of plants in the garden and how to take care of them. During distributions I had the chance to interact with teachers and students from different schools which helped me understand the needs of various communities.

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Dear Donor,

Thank you so much for your continued support of our Climate Action Project!

In our last report, we had shared about our first official workshop with the students of Valley Academy. Since then, our team has conducted another 22 workshops with over 150 budding Climate Champions from four different schools in Kisumu County.

The students’ eagerness and willingness to learn about and act on Climate Change has continued to inspire us and fill us with hope that we can protect our planet, our only home.

Each student that has attended workshops with us has also been responsible for their individual seedlings and collective group seedlings that they have taken back to plant in their schools and communities. We're hoping to share so many updates from each school in the coming months.

Calvin’s Story

Say hello to our Young Climate Champion!

Calvin attended a Climate Action Workshops in the latter half of 2021 and received a plant which he promised to grow and take care of. After the workshop, we checked back on him at school and the plant didn’t seem to be doing too well and during a later follow up visit, it had almost died.

However, this young champ not only revived his plant back but also made a planter out of a plastic bottle and used scrap metal wire to turn it into a “hanging pot”. When we visited the school in January, he was so excited to share this update with us.

He is also inspiring his friends to do the same with their plants!

We couldn’t be happier and prouder! This is the kind of ripple effect we hope to create through our Climate Action Program which will hopefully inspire many more climate action champions like Calvin.

Harvest update from our Mini Botanical Garden

3kg of carrots in 90 days.

We are so thrilled to share this update in this new year. We had planted carrot seeds in a small part of our vegetable patch in late September. Recently, we were able to harvest 3kg of this beautiful vegetable. Why are we sharing this?

If we can achieve this in such a small space, imagine what we can achieve when we convert unused school land into beautiful shambas and community gardens. And for that, we need your continued support. Will you consider becoming a monthly patron of this program?

An Update from our COVID Relief work as of January 2022

Joshua, a beneficiary of the food packs said, “This program has been empowering those that have been a part of it. Not having food puts many of my community members at a disadvantage because children can’t learn with an empty stomach and we can’t go on about our day without food either.”

Like Joshua and his family, 1,340 families have received food packs that have made a big difference in their day to day lives. Additionally through this program, 407 at-risk teenage girls have each received a sanitary kit and a menstrual health & hygiene talk. 3,346 students have also received an education pack with textbooks relevant to their respective classes, an exercise book and stationery.

With rising inflation and food prices, many families continue to struggle in this time. Your donation can support a family of five people for two weeks. Check out our COVID Relief Project here

Recognition from GlobalGiving

Team RKF has been recognized by GlobalGiving yet again and we have received all six badges for 2022. We are grateful for your continued support and we hope to continue doing this work as long as it is needed.

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