Plant-for-the-Planet Academy Nyeri (Kenia), 14 July 2011

Our Academy yesterday in Nyeri  was opened by the famous music called  “Kontbiro” (soundtrack to the Hollywood movie “The constant gardener”) of Ayub Oganda. 450 enthusiastic children from 17 different schools came to the church to listen to Felix´ speech and to take campaign photos with regional politicians. Benjamin Schilling and his team organized everything perfectly on behalf of the Rhino Watch Lodge so that we were even 15 minutes ahead of schedule in our program.

The only thing that was a little risky was when Felix asked all the children who wanted to become active for Plant-for-the-Planet in future, to come up to the stage. Suddenly there were 450 children standing on the small wooden stage. The total weight would have been around 16 tons, roughly equivelent to 8 rhinos! However the stage held and the children, their teachers and all the famous people went on to plant 450 trees together.

After his speech, the Kenyan Minister for Forestry and Wildlife agreed to have a campaign photo taken, and it was Maisha Wirth who had the opportunity to hold her hand infront of this famous politicians mouth. In the guestbook the Minister gave his summary of the days events with the words: “Stop talking. Start planting.” The Academy was held only a few kilometers away from the house where Wangari Maathai, the initiator of the UNEP Billion Tree Campaign, was born. The representatives of the Billion Tree Campaign, Lea and Kezia traveled from Nairobi to Nyeri just for the Academy and they shared the excitement of the children. Only 6 % of Kenya is covered by forest in comparison to Germany, which has 32 % forests.

Our travel diary: http://blog.plant-for-the-planet.org/