Schools across Northern Ireland are being urged to support a Northern Ireland wide campaign that’s aiming to plant one million trees, to combat climate change.
In an initiative being backed by the Irish National School Teachers Association (INTO), development charity Self Help Africa Northern Ireland is distributing native Irish tree saplings and age appropriate classroom resources to each school that signs up to support its tree planting initiative.
Self Help Africa Northern Ireland began the initiative last Spring, and to date has signed up more than 300 schools across Ireland to support their effort. The Northern branch of INTO is now launching their Springtime campaign, with saplings being delivered to participating schools between 6 and 10 March.
The schools tree planting is part of Self Help Africa’s ‘One Million Trees’ campaign which is planting a million trees in Africa and 100,000 new native trees in Ireland.
Participating schools are asking for voluntary contributions per child towards the One Million Trees project, with each donation of £2 enabling the charity to plant five trees in the school’s name, in Africa.
Ciara Tallon of Self Help Africa said: “Children are extremely passionate about the environment. They’re alarmed by the stories that they read and hear about global warming, and want change. Young people are already actively engaged with initiatives like Green Schools, they are frequently the champions of waste reduction and recycling in the home, and they understand how important trees are to removing damaging greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.”
Campaign Co-ordinator Sean McMahon, a former President of INTO, said that they have received some great expressions of interest from schools across Northern Ireland and that lots of classes are planning a ‘Dress Up in Green’ day to support the project, over the coming months.
Schools are being asked to register their interest at: selfhelpafrica.org/onemilliontrees/schools