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AYPAD Tree Planting Program – Sierra Leone

July 1, 2016 AYPAD Sierra Leone 0

Objective: To build local knowledge about the environment, to provide leadership and community service experiences to young people in the environmental sector, and to combat soil erosion and ecological degradation.

Program Description: Africa Youth for Peace and Development (AYPAD) works on two main levels within their tree planting program. First, AYPAD engages with the community as a whole through sensitization meetings with local youths. These workshops discuss the importance of caring for locally planted trees in order to decrease soil erosion and to provide protection from strong winds and rain. Secondly, AYPAD volunteers plant fruit and other lucrative trees in the Hill Top, Hill Side, and Hill Court regions of Freetown. This volunteer planting takes place during the rainy season and generally occurs three times a week. During the tree planting, AYPAD volunteers link with local community youth and leaders to ask where trees can be planted and to ensure that these trees will be cared for.

History and Partnerships: As a result of the 10 year war in Sierra Leone, many internally displaced people (IDP’s) sought refuge in and around the hill area of Freetown. Because living conditions and means of livelihood were extremely limited during this period, people sought fuel, building materials, and ways of earning small cash to support their families. As a result, the hills were logged extensively. With the natural environment vastly depleted, soil erosion and lack of shelter and shade have become key concerns. After conversing with the local population and witnessing continuing deforestation in the Hill areas AYPAD discovered that local communities continued to cut down trees out of economic necessity. In response to the continuing deforestation as well as food insecurity within these communities, AYPAD began planting fruit trees and other lucrative trees such as palm kernals which the community viewed as important forms of sustenance as well as potential revenue. Currently, AYPAD works on a purely voluntary basis with members who are unemployed using their time during the day to trek up into the hill communities, discuss the importance of the project with the community, and plant trees in areas designated safe and appropriate by the community.

Freetown

About AYPAD 1 Article

Africa Youth for Peace and Development was established in our country of origin Sierra Leone in 24 October 1995 and were registered in the 2000 as a not for profit charity with the Government of Sierra Leone. Our belief is establishing opportunity for young people in Africa through peace and social integration. Our remit as a non for profit charity is to create opportunities, enable and empower particularly disadvantaged young people, and the marginalized whose lives are constantly under threat because of their deprived economic and social situation Our organisation relies solely on charitable funding and donations to ensure the survival, sustainability and success and sustainability of our projects to benefit the most vulnerable young people in Sierra Leone and to ensure them a future. We are registered with the governments in 29 countries across the African continent with the belief that violence achieves no meaningful goal.