Establish agricultural training center in Cameroon

In preparation for the eventual planting of 10000 trees come wet season, Green Care Association ( GCA) is currently taking care of trees. The care include regular weeding and watering , while filling poly pots for additional trees. A good variety is being nursed with a bias to Bee and water catchment friendly trees. Visiting GCA nursery recently, Mr Lukong exclaimed aloud, " So you guys managed these trees to plant for communities, this is encouraging work for me." GCA is so thankful to all GlobalGiving donors whose sponsorship is helping in sustaining the tree nursery with the hope of planting within few months.

The onset of the tropical dry season in the Bamenda Highlands of Cameroon marks a new seed collection season at Green Care. As a local environmental NGO, Green Care collects seeds of indigenous species from the wild to nurse them. In order to encourage community members to actively participate in the seed collection venture, we encourage them to bring some of the seeds for little financial compensation. We thank GlobalGiving for making available the funds for us to carry on with our activities to ensure sustainability. The collection of these seeds from the wild are nursed and subsequently out-planted in community watersheds. So far, Green Care staff have prepared tree nursery beds to nursing the seeds. Everything being equal, the seedlings will be ready for planting as from mid-May 2020. We are grateful for all our donors who have been supporting our course to grapple with environmental issues through our Agricultural Training Centre.

Green Care Association has continued to strive in local natural resources management through diversification in the agricultural training center. This has been made possible thanks to GlobalGiving donors. One of these diversification activities is beeswax production using indigenous techniques. This is a chain of processes from training farmers on apicultural activities from site selection for an apiary, making and mounting hives, monitoring the farm when the hives are colonized, honey harvesting, transportation, and marketing. During one of such pieces of training at the Tabah community, one of the farmers, Vincent said that his idea of the honey production chain ends with drained honey. A by-product like a honeycomb chaffs is worthless. It from there that the Green Care team educated the community post-honey production by-products like beeswax. We have been extracting the wax in reasonable quantities and at the same time encouraging farmers to bring the chaffs to the Green Care’s agricultural training center for wax extraction. Green Care is planning a major training of beeswax extraction and how it can improve the incomes of the farmers. So far, we have extracted about a quarter of a ton worth of beeswax. We are looking for potential buyers at the moment. We use this opportunity to thank all our donors for supporting our cause to improve the livelihoods of our people. Thank you!  

Green Care has accelerated the nursery of environmentally friendly tree species for out-planting during the next rainy season. This has been possible through the generous donors through the GlobalGiving platform. We are very grateful for prioritizing our cause. Thank you! Through your donations, we have been able to buy polythene bags on which the tender plants are nursed. We are dedicated to planting these trees in community watersheds and also to encourage the concept of analog forestry in our community. One of Green Care’s volunteers, Ernest reiterated that it is now that he has seen the importance of trees in environmental conservation. He went on to say that with the increasing threats of climate change and emerging water and food security, these trees will go a long to mitigate some of these environmental stresses. Our target for the next tree planting season will be the Shisong and Bamngam watersheds which have been invaded by subsistence farmers. We intend to use some of the trees as boundary demarcations to stop these encroachments. Once more, thank you for your generosity and for supporting our cause to ensure environmental sustainability.

The past months have seen more community members develop more interest in our activities. This has been thanks to our donations through the GlobalGiving platform. Shisong and its environs is facing local and global environmental challenges like climate change and land degradation, especially at watersheds, which serve agricultural purposes and sources of water for communities. In the face of climate change and these environmental challenges, some community members from Shisong and its environs mobilized and came to Green Care in order to select some environmentally friendly tree species to plant around their water sources. The main reasons for selecting such species such as maesopsis, acacia, polysia is because they take up little water and can therefore help in protecting watersheds against rapid water loss. One of the community members, Joseph reiterated that he will plant such species around the spring in his farm to guarantee water security in the future for dry season irrigation of this vegetables. Green Care Association is committed to continue impacting on the lives of communities through community actions. We are grateful to GlobalGiving and her partners for incessant support we have received. Thank you!