This week I have been working on preparing a promotional video to raise awareness of Wells for Zoë’s #1millionTrees project.

Éamonn suggested I arrange a visit to Enyezini CDSS, – a secondary school where a volunteer teacher bought pine trees and fruit tree seedlings from Wells for Zoë for earlier this year – to see how the planting was going, take some videos and pictures of the students and meet Janet, the Guatemalan volunteer teacher working there who initially paid for the trees from her own pocket! WfZ did give her a good deal and thus began a new chapter in the planting trees project.

So, on Wednesday morning I went with Martina, Boyd and Dyton to Enyezini, hopeful to learn more about the planting trees project and meet some of the students involved. It was great to chat with Janet as she shared her experiences so far in Malawi with me from the perspective of another international volunteer. Janet has come to Malawi with the US Peace Corps and has already served 10 months of her two-year programme working as a teacher at the secondary school, which hosts around 350 students. She has also invited me to meet some of her fellow Peace Corps volunteers who are working with different schools and organisations all over the country, which would be a great way to spread the word of the Wells for Zoë planting trees project.

Janet explained that the school has bought about 200-220 trees from Wells for Zoë so far, with the hope of buying more.

Students at the school now plant the trees as part of their Agriculture Studies class. This is the first time that the students have put what they have learned in the classroom into practise outside of the classroom. It was amazing to see how happy this makes the students, giving them a break from being stuck in the classroom while still actively learning more about agriculture and planting.

It is the hope of Wells for Zoë that the students will eventually learn how to plant seeds themselves, meaning they could bring seeds back home to their communities and families and show more and more people how to plant.

As you can see, they were all very excited to pose for the camera with their newly planted trees!