The Principal Secretary (PS), State Department for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), Susan Mang’eni, has said the government is reviving the 4K Clubs in schools to involve young learners in tree planting and environmental conservation.
Speaking during a tree planting exercise to mark the Mazingira Day at Bunandi Primary School in Samia Sub-county in Busia County on Friday, Mang’eni said the leaders will be patrons to help in ensuring the maintenance and growing of trees to maturity.
“The government is reviving the 4k Clubs and through this, we will be working together with our young learners to plant and maintain trees. We are going to be patrons as leaders and wherever we have planted trees, we are going to work with learners and teachers to ensure the trees are well maintained.
Mang’eni said they are also sensitizing stakeholders, including young learners, on the importance of planting trees, so that they can also be part of the national drive to attain a target of 15 billion trees by 2032.”
She said that emphasis is shifting to the fruit trees to address the food insecurity issues.
“We are emphasising on fruit trees to help address food insecurity issues experienced in our country. We have planted 2,000 trees today, and out of that, 400 have been fruit, including avocado, mango and orange trees. When these trees have mature fruits, our learners will be adding fruits to their diet and even our people will be able to sell fruits and get money,” she said.
The PS named the tree she planted with the name of the projects the government is spearheading in her Department.
“I have named one as ‘the Hustler Fund’, so that it can be a sign of prosperity as it grows. The other tree has been named as ‘NYOTA’ to simplify the currently rolled-out NYOTA project that is aiming to empower 70 youth from every Ward in the country with a business boost of Sh50,000. All the initiatives we are undertaking as the government, we have named a tree after it so that we can see the initiative grow as the tree grows,” she said.
Mangeni expressed optimism that they will manage to go beyond the set target for Busia County. “Our target as Busia County is 74 million trees and so far, we are at 8.2 per cent of our target. We are going to focus much on our hills so that we fill them with trees. Trees are money, food and environment conservers. Most farm workforces are women and they understand the importance of trees and we appreciate it because in Busia women are doing well in tree planting,” said the PS.
The Principal Secretary for Economic Planning, Bonface Makokha, said his Department will help to ensure there is proper tracking of planted trees.
“We have signed an MoU as a Department with a World Resource Institute, which is the great financier of the climate change projects. We agreed that every student should be given the opportunity to adopt two trees. We will be rewarding all those who will maintain their trees until they reach their height. This will encourage many to properly maintain the trees they plant.”
Makokha added that this will encourage and develop a culture of planting trees because they play a big role in ensuring our environment is better.
A total of 2,000 tree seedlings were planted at Bunandi Primary School to mark Mazingira Day.
By Salome Alwanda
