ENVIRONMENTAL AND SOCIETAL EDUCATION
PLANTING MORE THAN JUST TREES
DRC Environment Ministry technical expert Koffi Boteko shows thousands of acacia tree seedlings to Congo American SARL general manager Dodo Mbenga. The Ministry's Directorate of Agriculture and Reforestation is looking forward to partnering with our educational tree-planting initiative. The trees cost 30 cents each, to be purchased with funds sourced from international organizations fighting climate change, and distributed to school children as the climax of a fun field trip focused on environmental and social responsibility.
Improving the social and natural environments
Consider the following factors:
The Congo Basin is one of the world's "lungs". Trees growing in equatorial forests like Congo's have a disproportionately high impact on removal of CO2 from the atmosphere.
The DRC is one of the key battlefields against global warming but gets relatively little attention from climate change initiatives because of its difficult operating environment.
The DRC has one of the world's highest birthrates, and a huge proportion of its population is school aged.
Congo is a critical component of global environmental health, yet lags far behind in reforestation activities.
Chart courtesy of Africa.com.
Organizations like National Geographic and Plant for the Planet sponsor programs for students in the 5th to 8th grades, the stage at which people are most open to such education. Sensitivity gained during that window results in positive actions later in life.
Our new ALI location is hosted by the Geographic Institute of Congo, a natural gathering place for environmental education.
The Directorate of Reforestation in the DRC Ministry of the Environment and Sustainable Development has tens of thousands of seedlings available.
Groups like Trees for the Future and many others have established expertise and funding sources.
Our new K-12 partner, Complexe Scolaire les Loupiots, has a 10,000-acre property set aside for reforestation and ecological education.
People and institutions in Kinshasa are feeling a resurgent desire to restore their city to live up to its former nick-name "Kin la Belle" (Kinshasa the beautiful). Why shouldn't that include a tree for each of the city's 12 million inhabitants?
ALI's adult students include some well-known and influential media personalities.
When we connect those dots, we see a chance to harness global reforestation resources to reach hundreds of thousands of school kids and plant millions of trees.
We are calling it "Tree Congo."
Right now it's just an idea. We're not going to let it get ahead of our prime focus of establishing a profitable business base, as described here.
But isn't it intriguing to think that a tiny part of the worldwide expenditure against climate change could support us in reaching out to thousands of schools, offering field trips to an environmental and social responsibility education center, and sending each student home with a seedling to plant? Then staying in touch with the kids as they and their trees grow, adding value to their lives with updates and opportunities for further service and education including within our family of educational institutions?
This can be accomplished through our non-profit affiliate Accel Academies of Congo with administrative support from Congo American SARL, which will earn a modest recurring profit to return as dividends to the investors who helped it all get started.
Again, we won't let this distract us from fulfilling our prime directive of achieving profitability within ALI. But we thought you would be interested in the potential of an additional revenue stream -- and one more way that your financial investment will not only do well for you, but also do good for humankind.
For now, please watch this space.
© 2019 Congo American LC