Plant 50,000 Native Trees for Refugees in Uganda

It’s almost the end of October and there is much to share about what we’ve been able to accomplish in the Palorinya Refugee Settlement in the last few months.

Our partnership with One Tree Planted is coming to a close, so we wanted to highlight what we’ve been up to as well as take you on a bit of a visual tour. Thanks for coming along for the ride!

Here are just a few key results from the project:

• Created a total of 112 jobs in the Palorinya Refugee Settlement community, which includes 5 women from the briquette training who are now employed full-time with Comboni, another local organization.

• 112 farmers in 6 farmer groups received extensive agroforestry training. Seventy-two attended an agroforestry intensive and then guided the remaining 40 farmers throughout the program. We exceeded our goal by 25%!

• 60 traditional charcoal producers (TCPs) were mobilized into four groups and received extensive training on sustainable charcoal production and land restoration. We hit our target by 100%!

Throughout this project, WildFF continued our efforts in spreading fuel-efficient stoves (FESs) that decrease fuelwood consumption by 25% to refugee households within the settlement. In order to meet our goal of 2,000 households, we successfully trained 50 cookstove artisans on fuel-efficient stoves construction and maintenance, using local materials, and how to educate others on the benefits of the stoves. It was so gratifying to make this happen!

In all of WildFF’s initiatives, we are focused on involving and empowering women in the local communities and we hope our work in Palorinyahas has enabled us to make a lasting impact. In all, 1,231 local women were involved across all sections of this project:

• 64 women were the direct beneficiaries of the agroforestry component

• 30 of the 60 traditional charcoal producer (TCP) participants in sustainable charcoal production

• 1,048 women received fuel-efficient stoves

• 25 women partook in the agro-waste briquette groups

• 4 of the 8 nursery attendants are women

• 60 women volunteered for pot filling and maintenance at the nursery site

We also wanted to share that 69,917 trees were planted as a part of our partnership with One Tree Planted!

However, our work is not without challenges that continue to hinder our progress in the area. There have been prolonged droughts and short rains, as well as poor soils in the degraded landscapes, which greatly affect tree growth and survival rates.

There also remains a cultural assumption that trees are something that exists in the natural landscape to be extracted rather than a resource rather than one that needs to be maintained and cultivated. This is why WildFF invests so much time into our local capacity building and training. We understand the importance of demonstrating how protecting trees and replanting can create long-term economic opportunities through improved access to alternative income sources.

But do not just take our word for it! Here are some photos of our work, so you can see for yourself how your generous donations are making an impact. Thank you again and we’ll be back in touch soon!

Thank you,
The WildFF team