Our Kenyan partner, OTEPIC, has just successfully completed a 6 month programme of tree-planting and ecological education which reached 5,000 children in 5 schools, attracting hundreds of members of the local community to help out. The project originally aimed to train 500, but overwhelming demand and enthusiasm from the local community and young people meant 5000 took part.
The programme included training on the importance of tree-planting and seed collection, as well as how to establish tree nurseries and plant trees properly, with a huge tree-planting exercise using over 5,000 seeds. The programme also ran a seed exchange programme between schools.
The programme was launched because of OTEPIC’s huge concern for the degradation of the local Kitale natural environment, with deforestation occurring on a mass scale due to the need for firewood and farming. This project aimed to educate young people on the need to protect and nurture their forests, and to empower them to take action themselves to build the tree population back up.
Peter Kasiti, 15, commented how the programme had changed his attitude:
Before I thought it was the responsibility of teachers and parents to organise tree planting, but now I’ve volunteered to organise my fellow students into groups who will be responsible for watering the trees and collecting trees in the forest.
Just £3.50 can buy 50 tree seedlings. Please help us to support OTEPIC provide ecological education to children in Kenya and donate here.
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*Names have been changed according to our child protection policy.
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Susie has 30+ experience as a creative copywriter, editor, and proofreader, starting out as a 20-year-old copywriter in the Mad Men world of early 1990s advertising in South Africa. Ever since, she’s had a love affair with creative conceptualisation, thinking outside of the box, writing to a deadline, and being thrown in the deep end!
She took an MSc in Publishing at Edinburgh Napier University as a mature student, in 2015, and continues to keep herself busy working as a copy-editor, proofreader and copywriter in book publishing, corporate communications, and publishing project management.
Apart from her love of working with independent authors, Susie has a fondness for working in the third sector and likes to use her corporate communications and marketing experience to support projects close to her heart. She has lived and worked in the Findhorn area for 25 years, and has been involved in a number of third sector projects and organisations, and family businesses.
Working at Ecologia Youth Trust helps Susie to live in integrity with her values of supporting the next generation to be the best that they can be, and she sees it as a way to give back to Mama Africa, the beloved continent on which she was born.
Ellen joined the Ecologia team in June 2018 as Marketing and Communications Manager. Ellen has lived in Scotland for 6 years and has worked for non-profit and charitable organisations across varied fields. She currently shares her passion for helping young people through Ecologia Youth Trust and she works as a dancer and dance teacher in her spare time.
Robyn is the Associate Director of International Projects, having previously worked within the team as a Project Development and Marketing Officer from April 2019 until May 2021. As Associate Director, Robyn is co-leading the International side of Ecologia with Founder and Director, Liza Hollingshead, bringing a new energy into Ecologia as they look towards the future of the charity.
Liza is the founder of Ecologia and Director of International Projects. She was born and educated in South Africa and worked there as a high school teacher. She moved to live in the Findhorn Community in 1974. She started Ecologia in 1995 after being introduced to Dmitry Morozov, the founder of Kitezh Children’s Community in Russia, and was inspired to support the community in its mission to rescue orphaned children from institutions and give them homes, families and education in a supportive environment.
This led to projects supporting disadvantaged youth and children in South East Asia and in East Africa. TRead more about Liza’s story here.
