The seedlings included mango, cashew, citrus, shade trees and acacia which were given to three schools each from Wa West, Wa East and Nadowli-Kaleo District District Assemblies as well as Jirapa, Lawra and Wa Municipalities respectively.

The Communication Officer of the EU-REACH Project, Ms Adiza N-Saing-oh Yesseh made this known to journalists at Wa on Friday, after assisting pupils of the Zingu Junior High School, one of the beneficiary schools in the Wa Municipality to plant some of the seedlings at the school’s premises.

The European Union Resilience Against Climate Change (EU-REACH) Project seeks to improve the climate resilience of rural livelihoods in North-West Ghana, through the promotion of conservation agriculture and agroforestry practices.

Ms Yesseh said the move would encourage pupils, teachers and the general public to help promote tree planting in the various communities.

“We are urging the school children to take proper care of the seedlings provided today, so that the seedlings will grow into trees that will benefit them and generations to come”, she said.

She explained that REACH staff were planting the trees together with the children to imbibe in them the values of planting trees and added that the initiative was to help promote climate change mitigation strategies.

Ms Yesseh urged pupils and teachers of the various schools to cultivate the habit of planting more trees to protect the environment for everyone.

She stressed that the EU-REACH project staff would always visit beneficiary schools for monitoring to ensure the trees were properly nurtured for growth.

She used the opportunity to call on stakeholders such as traditional leaders and residents in selected districts to support the project and help monitor the nurturing of the seedlings.

The Headmaster of the Zingu Junior High School Mr Derrick Bonuba Ba-iibu Derick on behalf of the school expressed appreciation to the REACH team for including the school in the initiative and pledged the school’s unflinching commitment for the project.

FROM RAFIA ABDUL RAZAK WA