Climate Action in Education: Planting 10,000 Trees

Dear Donor,

Greetings from warm and sunny Kisumu.

Thank you for your continued support to our project! In our last report we shared about the incredible transformation of Elimu de Ark’s garden an update from our mini botanical garden and RKF’s GlobalGiving Badges. You can read that full report here: [https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/environment-in-education-planting-100-000-trees/reports/?subid=200754]. In this report we share ongoing workshops with the students of Junior Secondary School at a school in Nyalenda where we hope to implement our first contemplative garden (more on this in the report) and a beautiful update from Elimu de Ark’s garden.

Climate Action Workshops

Over the past six months, we have conducted six extensive climate action workshops with a group of 81 students from Central Junior Secondary School’s first cohort. The workshops are a continuation of our commitment to incorporate climate action within public schools in Kisumu County. During these workshops students share and discuss practical ways of becoming climate action champions and learn the importance of climate justice. This is a continuation of the work we started during the pandemic and we hope to reach even more students and schools in the coming months.

Contemplative Gardening

Last month, RKF was selected as a grantee of Mind and Life Institute’s first ever cohort of Contemplative Changemaking Grants. Through this grant we will introduce contemplative gardening and build gardens in 3 schools over the next two years to create spaces that will cultivate environmental stewardship and agency. Below we share a brief project bio:

In a time of climate crisis, climate action education for young students (aged 8+) is crucial to cultivate environmental stewardship and agency. However, this process can in itself induce climate anxiety leaving students feeling helpless and resigned to a bleak future. At RKF, we want to address this through climate action workshops designed to introduce them to contemplative gardening and by helping set up school gardens where students can build a daily practice.

Gardening is a wonderful form of mindfulness that connects us with nature by putting our focus back on our immediate surroundings and in to the earth. It gives us a true sense of agency as we take responsibility for our planet. This project will create a mindful student community within Kisumu that will start contemplative gardening clubs in their schools hopefully creating a culture of gardening and environmental stewardship within their larger communities for years to come.

Going Bananas

Do you remember in our last report we shared about the trees we planted at Elimu de Ark Primary School? The banana tree is about to bear fruit, check out the photo at the bottom of this report!

Gratitude Network Fellowship

Earlier this month, the Rahul Kotak Foundation (RKF) and its Co-Founder and CEO Mansi Kotak were selected as a 2023 Gratitude Network Fellow out of over 1,500 applicants. The fellowship is a year-long program that will help RKF scale up its work to be able to reach even more students living in marginalized communities.