Climate Action in Education: Planting 10,000 Trees

In our previous report, we had shared that we were re-purposing all our programs to adapt to the COVID-19 Pandemic.

For seven months all schools in Kenya remained shut and the entire academic year is to be repeated in 2021. While candidate students (Year 4, 8 and Form 4) returned to school in October, the majority of students across Kenya are still at home. With a sharp spike in local cases in the past two weeks, there is increasing uncertainty whether schools will remain open.

Amidst this, our team has had to go back to the drawing board to think about how we can continue to run this project in a safe way whether schools remain open or not. This has been challenging. However, we have a solution in sight…

Our team is currently working on converting a small backyard behind the team offices into a small botanical garden where we can carry out safe, socially-distanced workshops with students who will learn about the basics of how to care for the environment, how to plant, propagate and care for different flowers and trees. They will also learn to put together the vertical garden bags we had shared about in the previous report. Furthermore, students will learn how to design and plan their school gardens which they will build using the skills they learn in the environmental workshops.

To support students and their families, Team RKF has also been carrying out various relief exercises to make basics such as food, soap, books and sanitary pads accessible. Through the COVID Relief work we have been doing over the past few months, we have been able to:

• Reach 241 families totaling 1,222 beneficiaries
• Provide 252 food packs that have served 34,970 meals
• Provide 94 Sanitary Kits (that consist of 564 environmentally friendly re-usable pads)
• Provide 90 Education Packs
• Make 246kg of Soap accessible to different communities
• Distribute over 100 re-usable masks

We remain committed to supporting our communities through these uncertain times.