Trees for Cities began their first planting project in the Bambis area of Addis Ababa, where they transformed a disused patch of wasteland and planted over 100 banana, lemon and avocado trees. Young people living on the streets are employed to look after the orchard, which has given them the means to escape life on the streets, eat well, and even pay for schooling in some cases, which they would have little hope of doing otherwise. Most of the fruits of the orchard are sold to generate income for the project.
Following the success of their first project in the city, TfC have developed a second partnership with a local organisation, the Ethiopian Wildlife and Natural History Society. This project involves the planting of 1,000 fruiting trees in community gardens and open spaces in the heart of the city. Species will include apple, plum and pear, with all monies raised from the sale of the fruit going straight back in to maintaining the trees. Women's and youth groups, in addition to the unemployed and those on low income, will be employed to plant and help maintain the orchards.
Finally, TfC have begun working in partnership with Birhan Integrated Community Development Organisation. This is a long-term project to develop a tree nursery which local women living with HIV are helping to maintain. The aim is to grow 3,000 indigenous trees each year, which will then be planted out in various community sites throughout Addis Ababa. The women also plant vegetables, which provide them with nutritious food, which they otherwise would not have access to.
Trees for Cities approached Melvin Benn from Festival Republic in 2007 to request much needed funds to extend their initial project. Melvin agreed to donate £9000, and also to send two members of the Festival Office to experience the projects first hand.
Ian Donaldson and Sharon Reuben set off for Addis with Graham Simmonds, Chief Executive of Trees for Cities, to meet the local groups, assist with tree planting and see how Festival Republic events in the UK are linked to making a vital difference in this fascinating city.
For more information about Trees For Cities,
click here
Read their trip diary over the next week below:
Wednesday 27th February
Ian Donaldson and myself, Sharon Reuben, both work at Festival Republic and have done for many years, and we’ve come to Addis Ababa with Graham Simmonds, CEO of Trees for Cities because Festival Republic are a major funder of the charity, but also because Ian and I work closely with them on their Tree-Athlon events in the UK so feel a strong personal involvement.
Last year our boss & head of FR, Melvin Benn, made a large donation specifically for their Addis projects so we’ve come to see how that money can make a difference.
Over the next three days we have a hectic schedule to meet local community groups & charities, visit orchards & orphanages, film & be filmed, have tea with the Ambassador and hopefully catch some of the local music – all in the ‘Cradle of Civilization’, Ethiopia! To get a grip on Addis, we’ve got to hit the ground running.
On first appearance, Addis appears a typical capital city; all manner of life on the street, billboards, street stalls and nose to tail traffic. A closer look reveals more of the nature of this unique city; its endless hills and sprawling enormity, an alphabet, church and calendar unique in the world, western clothes and medieval robes in equal measures, the constant aroma of incense and strong coffee, vast herds of animals negotiating the wide streets and the blissful absence of international brands & fast food!
An hour after arriving, we’re met by Gufla Fitiwe from the Ethiopian Wildlife & Natural History Society, a shy man with a lifetime of dedication to ecology and community. We drive through the city and a turn off from the main drag quickly takes us down a dirt track past rows of simple homes. Minutes later we’re surrounded by eucalyptus trees and distant mountains, and at the bottom of a steep hill which feels a million miles from the fumes & bustle of the city. The ground is dry, the grass short and rain rare at the moment, yet the hill looks nothing short of an oasis. Neat terraces offer up row upon row of sprouting greens and robust vegetables, and beautifully tended young fruit trees.
This project began in 2004 with a plot of disused land donated by the government, seeds and saplings from Trees for Cities, and training offered by the council to a group of retired locals. But its current success is down to the commitment, love and hard work which this group now put into the site, and the huge amount of support and cooperation from the local community.
It’s smiles all round as we receive one vigorous handshake after another, followed by an unexpected chance to appear on Ethiopian TV as the press are out in force to cover our visit. There’s lots of chat & a few speeches as the men who work the land talk about the process of turning this disused plot into a valuable garden, with trees which not only beautify the city and help the environment, but will soon produce annual fruit crops of pears, apples and plums and a source of income and food for this low income community. Walking around, I make a mental note to tidy up my garden in the spring, and give my own tiny apple tree a bit of love in the hope that it might do as well as these!
Both for TfC as the parent charity, and for us, Festival Republic, as donors, the sense of ambition and achievement is very real.
It’s hard to tear ourselves away but we have our most official engagement of the trip; tea with the newly appointed British Ambassador, Norman Ling.
The beautiful building is an imposing setting, and we’re gob smacked by the giant tortoises that amble across the lawns of the compound, but we’re made to feel very welcome and enjoy a lively chat about how the Embassy might be involved in future TfC work in Addis. By the time we leave, the Ambassador has agreed to visit the elderly group planting project himself, with his wife, a keen gardener, and we leave feeling hopeful of future support and cooperation.
We head back to our hotel inspired by our introduction to Addis, but exhausted as well..lots to reflect on and a very busy day tomorrow.
Thursday 28th February
Visit to tree nursery, receive talk on horticulture training programme, meet with trainees (local unemployed youths)
My head is spinning! I’m grabbing moments to write notes following a hectic & incredible second day, with just half an hour before we head out again, this time for dinner with all the people we’ve met so far. Ian and I work for Festival Republic, we produce music festivals and donate money to a charity that plant trees in city environments – all sounds straightforward and yet today told a very different story – nutrition, healthcare, education, climate change and urban regeneration all emerged as bi-products of tree planting, and that’s why my head is spinning!
Before this visit I wondered about Addis, about Ethiopia and what we know about this country. Had we ever heard anything beyond news of famine, drought and poverty? Could people who face such monumental challenges care about the greening of a city or was it a western luxury to care about such things?
The answer; not only do they care but they set their sights so much higher, their achievements are quite humbling. Projects provide unity and reward cooperation within the community, offer a shared experience, a chance to learn skills, they provide food to eat, food to sell and a source of sustainable income which will only increase over time, as trees mature.
We start the day meeting Sisay Worku from BICDO, a community charity who work on a range of projects relating to health, education and social support. One of their city projects is the Birhan Community Development Organisation. This group of around 80 women are mostly foster parents caring for children orphaned within their extended family or community. Around half the woman also have HIV/AIDS. Two years ago the project began with a dirty overgrown quarry carved from the land and surrounded by the homes of many of these women. However it was deemed suitable to farm, and donated to the project, and training offered to the women on how to farm it.
The women sit with us, most of them with young babies strapped to their backs, and through translators admit they were unimpressed at first sight of the land, and the bare twigs, as the saplings appeared to them. But training from government forestry experts, and the support of local people gave them inspiration to try, and they now find themselves working the first stages of a successful fruit orchard, with several varieties of apples, plums and pears all set to do well. Like the other group, the women also grow a variety of vegetables to provide food during this period of growth for the trees; they are advised to wait three years before harvesting fruit to ensure the trees are strong enough to survive …not an easy thing to ask people to do when poor nutrition is a constant issue. They also grow tree saplings here, which they will be able to sell in Addis – another future source of income for the group.
There are challenges here – immediate challenges like access to and storage of water as they currently share just one water storage tank. Long term challenges will include protecting the site from animals, birds and thieves. However there’s no doubting the commitment of everyone involved from the local groups, to the ministry of Agriculture to the women themselves and they are optimistic of meeting those challenges.
We’re made very welcome, and share a coffee ceremony with the women and many visiting government reps who’ve joined us, all under a makeshift shade as respite from the relentless sun. Coffee is a big deal here, it’s the main crop and drinking it is virtually compulsory. For someone like me who never drinks it, the smell is enticing but its thick as tar and powerful as a bullet! As everyone relaxes more, the women, shy at first, take pleasure in showing us around their individual plots of healthy chard & cabbage so fat Jamie Oliver would drool and by the time we have to leave, they are in a huge circle, singing, dancing and using a water butt as a drum!
After a quick stop for lunch we’re off again with Gufla to the AGOHELD Orphanage.
As soon as we enter the gates, brightly painted buildings, clean ordered courtyards, flower beds bursting with colour and warm smiles welcome us. 70 year old Abebech Gobena founded this place 28 years ago when she returned to Addis from a trip with two orphaned babies, victims of the drought of 1980. Within a year, she had brought 19 more orphans home, and her family and husband turned their backs on what they saw as crazy behaviour and left her to start a new life, putting children first.
From this simple start, the Addis centre has grown beyond an orphanage. With 260 staff and 300 volunteers it now includes a hospital, HIV/AIDS clinic, nursery and junior schools, adult education centre, shop, fruit and vegetable gardens and much more. Their list of community projects in the city and beyond and successes is immense, and while they have raised around 3000 children at their centre, their wider programmes of education, health care & home based support have reached more than 12,000.
There is so much to take in as we walk from dormitory to classroom, clinic to nursery, and everyone is keen to chat! And our link to this inspirational place is simply the trees that were donated to the centre, and which now have pride of place in a number of immaculate gardens around the compound. In one garden, the children have small plots of their own and everyone is eagerly awaiting the first crops of fruit.
We leave feeling inspired and delighted that such great attention and care is available here for the poorest and most vulnerable children. Check them out at
www.telecom.net.et/~agos/
We stop by a few homes on our way back to the hotel; via Guflas charity, trees have been given to hundreds of individual homes, community groups and institutions and he’s keen to show us a few…we’re welcomed to three separate and very different homes, but at every one, perfect young fruit trees are being treated like the most prized possessions the family has. The soil in Addis is clearly well suited to the species chosen and there’s no doubt that in just a few years, the people of Addis will be enjoying fruit, shade and all the environmental and social benefits of a greener city.
That night we have dinner in a local restaurant with people from all the groups we’ve met, and enjoy a few hours of captivating traditional music & dance so energetic that we’re exhausted just watching it!
Friday 29th February
Our final visit the next morning is to Bambis Garden Café. This was a rubbish filled patch of land in the middle of several lanes of busy traffic, in the heart of the city until local musician Sileshi Demissie took it on, and employed local street children to help him create a little oasis. A lush lawn, tropical plants and trees and a café were placed on the site, which now employs nearly 30 people and is a popular spot with locals. Behind the café, avocado, banana and other fruit trees lead down to the river and create a barrier to the traffic. Sileshi has many such projects around the city and takes pride in his efforts to beautify Addis.
Its an ambition shared by many Ethiopians and during this, their millennium year the number of tree planting projects has exceeded all expectations. Graham from Trees For Cities, and both Ian and I from Festival Republic leave Addis inspired and delighted that the money spent there is making such a difference to peoples lives. We’ve seen how far money can go, and how a small investment if nurtured can grow into something beautiful, sustainable and beneficial to many.
There will be three Tree-Athlon events in the UK this year and some of the money raised will go towards these amazing and hard working people. If you’d like to support Trees For Cities, you could join one of their events or check out their website and be part of this green & gorgeous revolution!
www.treesforcities.org
