What kind of images come to mind when you hear this theme? While everyone’s personal experience with climate change may vary, this spring, we hope to reflect together on global issues and consider what we can do in our daily lives.

Throughout this month, we will be featuring stories of our graduates and ARI’s own initiatives to tackle environmental challenges.

Our second story features Catherine Mtambo (2012 ARI Graduate).

Catherine from Malawi, aims to “move people from dependence to independence.” she works with 102 rural area groups of about 25 members each and regularly visits families in their homes to teach them about sanitation, business, and integrated household farming. One of their creative initiatives is planting trees.

Wandering around the village, we soon found the tree nursery, where they are growing Acacia, Mtete, Ndia, Atanga, and Guava – all local trees. This activity started in 2020, and everyone is happy about how much trees have improved their lives. “Here, every house has a tree” and every household plants five trees a year. They provide shade and serve as windbreaks. Some have fruits or medicinal properties. Branches can be trimmed for firewood, fencing, or roof thatch. Seeds can be sold and leaves become compost! There is nothing bad about planting trees and the only thing that limits their numbers is they don’t have enough tree tubes for the seedlings! “The relationship between people and trees is very important. That’s why we plant.”
Everyone has a backyard garden complete with banana trees, and people readily share the suckers (needed to plant more bananas). Why do they do this? “Because nature was meant to be shared,” they shouted.

(Excerpt from “Rural Leaders: Malawi, Day 15 by Steven Cutting)


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【Series of the articles】
Living Kindly on Wounded Land: Our Initiatives ① Roy David (India)