What an amazing month it’s been.

Whilst we were not able to be in Malawi personally, we have been receiving almost daily updates on our tree twinning campaign – each message, photo and video of the planting has made us so happy! We have also been astounded by the generosity of our friends, clients, and partners – you have raised an incredible £503 – beating our target!

Thank you so much.

We said that we wanted to use your donations to plant an additional 100 trees in order to bring our total to 1,000. However, the site manager in Malawi, Henry, has informed us that as a result of your donations and finding some more usable land on the site, he has purchased another 200 trees.

These trees include: 25 Tangerines, 50 Mangoes, 10 Jacaranda, 25 Guavas, 50 Oranges, 10 Albizia Lebbeck, 20 Acacius Polycantha, and 10 Leucaena.

They are all due to be planted in January – so not only was your Christmas Tree twinned during December, the project goes on with these additional 200 trees!

Trees Being Planted in January

You’ll know what tangerine, mango, guava and orange trees are used for – all that delicious fruit will be harvested by the local community in good time!

The other types of trees might sound a little unfamiliar though. Jacaranda are easy to grow, don’t need much water and flower beautifully so will improve the environment for locals.

Albizia lebbeck is a fast-growing deciduous tree with an open, large, spreading crown meaning it provides lots of shade and relief from the heat. Acacius Polycantha, also known as White Thorn, is a flowering tree which can grow up to 25m tall, whilst Leucaena is another flowering plant with seeds that can be used as beads.

All of the trees were chosen by the project leader in Malawi, to ensure that there was a good range of different species that would benefit both the environment, and the community.

Community Involvement

Getting the community involved was important to us from the start, and had always been crucial to the charity that we worked with, Building Malawi. We have been sent photos of hundreds of Malawians getting involved in planting and we are so proud and happy that so many people wanted to get involved.

Some of the groups who helped with planting include: Mtsiliza Church, Grace’s Netball Team, the Widows Care Empowerment Ministry who support widows and other women in the local community, Tingathe (an organisation that supports youths with entrepreneurship skills and HIV education), Zikomo foundation kindergarten, Mtandire community police staff, the Youth Forum for National Transformation, Malawi Scottish Partnership, and Ascent Soccer, amongst others.

Once again, thank you for supporting this campaign to plant more trees in Malawi. This is something that we are very proud of and passionate about – and we hope to scale up our planting efforts soon. Watch this space!