Empower children to plant gardens and trees

Last year, the region where we work experienced the worst drought in 40 years. When the rains did come, the soil could not absorb the water and there were severe floods.

For several months, our planting programs struggled including the school gardens, youth tree planting, and our women's agriculture programs. We could not justify using water for these efforts when there was not enough water for children to drink. And, then when we were able to plant, floods created further problems.

This year, we hope the rain season will come earlier and be more stable. We are working with our local partners on strategies for traditional rainwater catchment - using ditches. Our vocational training graduates are also creating innovative rainwater catchment systems that can be uesd in our gardens and with our trees. We will try to purchase tanks to store water, as well. 

Our partners work hard to pursue resilience and sustainability, but these issues along with regional food shortages and rising health threats are presenting significant challenges. We hope to have more positive news for you during the next update.

If you would like more details or have suggestions for resources that could help, please email us anytime - engage@engageglobally.org. Thank you, Heather

Our partners, in collaboration with the reforestation organization Teepalig, planted trees at one of our schools and in one of our partner communities in late July. We had also planned to plant other trees at another school and with some of the women in our women's agriculture program. But, very sadly, the rural region of Ghana where we work experienced what has been described as the worst drought since 1983. This impacted our ability to care for the planted trees and prevented us from planting more. It has also created severe food insecurity which is now a primary focus of our work.

The tree planting program still had positive outcomes as the tree planting is part of our environmental education curriculum and the children enjoyed learning how to plant trees and why they are important to their community (see photos). 

We are now working with our partners to see if we can use rainwater catchment and water storage tanks to provide irrigation options for future tree planting and for our school gardens. We are also seeking opportunities to apply for grants for rainwater tanks and welcome suggestions.