Kenya lost five per cent of forest cover between 1990 and 2005, an average of 12,600 hectares per year, due to human settlement and illegal logging, media reports say.
It is such statistics that led Joseph Masembe, a Ugandan law graduate and business marketing consultant, to venture into conservation work. He founded “Little Hands Go Green” in Uganda in 2012.
Mr Masembe shares his philanthropic journey and the plans he has for Kenya.
“I grew up in Kololo, Uganda, which was reserved for settlement in Kampala and was exposed to nature. I could say that this inspired me to do something to stop the disappearance of the country’s trees.
I studied law at Kingston University in London but decided not to practice. I became a business marketing consultant instead, but still I never felt fulfilled.
At the time, I had noticed the environment losing its green print day after day. I knew that the negative effects could only be felt after a while.
400,000 TREES PLANTED
Late Prof Wangari Maathai shared her sentiments with the world years ago but no one seemed bothered. We are now starting to see what she was talking about.
With this in mind, Little Hands Go Green came into place in 2012 and I ended up becoming an environmentalist with a different approach. I created a model of environmental conservation hinged on young children after realising that they have a proprietorial interest in the future.
They are the ones to inherit the planet when we are long gone and so it is incumbent on us to inculcate the notion of ownership of the environment in them.
‘A child’s mind is like wet cement. Whatever is written on it will become permanent’ is a quote that became my every day mantra.
The movement gives school children the ability to have fun and engage while doing a noble cause — planting trees.
Over the years, we have grown more than 400,000 fruit trees across 36 districts in Uganda. We have worked with over a million children so far.
We launched Little Hands Go Green in Rwanda in 2017 and the outcome has been overwhelming.
MARKETING GREEN
What exactly do we do? We lobby children to plant trees through festivals, conferences, workshops and marches.
We go to different schools and other learning institutions to encourage and educate them on the importance of keeping the environment green through planting of fruit trees.
The Green Festival is an annual event where children and young people showcase their talents. The children are expected to wear green, which is symbolic.
There, they have a fun-filled day after which they are each given a fruit seed to take home. The singing, dancing and modelling that is part of the festival is all given a green element.
We also hold climate change conferences in different schools where the children sit in a workshop to share thoughts and ideas on environmental conservation. We also plant fruit trees at the end of the day.
One of the outcomes of these conferences was the banning of polythene bag usage, which caught on in many schools in Uganda.
LAUNCH DATE
The climate change march was launched in Uganda last year. It saw over 5,000 children participating. The second edition took place on July 27.
The third edition will be held in Nairobi this month as Little Hands Go Green is launched in Kenya.
We chose the starting and ending point as Uhuru Park because of the Wangari Mathai symbolism.
Some of the counties earmarked for the start of the campaign are Nyandarua, Kakamega, Laikipia, Turkana, Kiambu, Kitui and, Machakos.
I met Nema’s (National Environment Management Authority) Director-General Geoffrey Wahungu at an environment assembly before where we struck a good conversation.
We ended up having a bilateral meeting last week and we purposed to help Nema drive environment conservation education with emphasis on young children.
We are keen on growing our movement in Kenya and cannot wait to do so.
CHALLENGES
Our core team is made up of four people but we have hundreds of volunteers for the projects.
The main challenges we face are finances and logistics. People also fail to have the mindset of creating green footprints which will be beneficial in the near future.
All in all, I am happy to be doing such a fulfilling job in helping create a better environment for the young ones in the society.”