FDH Bank Plc accelerates tree conservation initiative by partnering with Mary’s Meals school feeding programme

FDH Bank‘s Chipezeani (left) presents the symbolic tree seedling to Khonje

By Victor Singano Jnr.

In its commitment to help in the fight against climate change, FDH Bank Plc has partnered with Mary’s Meals — the school feeding programme across the country — by donating 10,000 tree seedlings to inculcate tree conservation culture on young learners.

At the presentation ceremony on Tuesday at St. Pius Girls Primary School in Blantyre, Mary’s Meals Country Director, Angella Khonje applauded FDH for the gesture, saying it is a timely gift as it will help to inspire the young minds that they need to replenish what they have taken from the environment.

Khonje said they plant over 40,000 trees every year through primary school learners and other stakeholders and the 10,000 tree seedling from FDH Bank will help them to reach out to an extra 208 schools across the country.

In Malawi, Mary’s Meals — the international school feeding charity that encourages adolescents to look forward to school every day — serves over 1 million children with life-changing meals every school day, from the initial 200 children in two Malawian schools in 2002.

Now well established, the charity also inculcates a number of social issues on the young minds which include tree conservation, whose environment is being wantonly degraded as a result of careless cutting down of trees without replacing.

In her vote of thanks, Khonje took the opportunity to inform FDH Bank Head of Finance Richard Chipezaani — and his accompanying staff colleagues — that when they were starting their program in 2002, they only had 200 children but the program has grown and now we are feeding 1,035,550 children in Malawi alone while globally it is at a total of 2,058,099.

“This means that Mary’s Meals footprint in Malawi is the largest in terms of number of children because we have a total of 987 primary schools and Early Child Development (ECD) centres accross the country.

“For this reason, we really need to plant more trees because for us to cook for all these childrens, we need to have enough firewood. So, we really appreciate what FDH has done.

“We hope that other companies will emulate this because apart from using the trees for cooking, it also helps us in many ways such as oxygen, rainfall just to mention a few,” she said.

On his part, Chipezaani said they decided to reach to Mary’s Meals in their ‘Be Green Smart’ tree planting season, taking cognizance that the charity reaches out to many young minds who need to embrace the environmental conservation.

Chipezaani said FDH Bank has a sustainability pillar — under the banner ‘Our Environment’ — which includes the environment and that in every tree planting season the company takes the exercise seriously in order to ensure there is protection of trees in the country.

He added that they decided to partner Mary’s Meals as it is the only charity which is involved in primary school feeding programs which requires enough firewood.

“Our target is to make sure we plant 1 million trees by the end of this initiative,” he said. “Through the tree planting exercise, we are partnering with a number of organization, companies as well as religious groups because we want to make tree planting a culture to all Malawians.

“We are confident that once Mary’s Meals successfully plants and takes care of these trees, the various schools they will reach out to will never be the same in three years to come and climate change will be issues of the past,” Chipezaani said.

On behalf of fellow pupils, Alinafe Thunga commended FDH and Mary’s Meals for considering St. Pius School, to be one of the beneficiaries, saying they will do their best to manage and protect the trees because once they grows up they will create a good environment around the school.

A fortnight ago, FDH Bank Plc launched the ‘Be Green Smart’ tree planting season by donating 10,000 tree seedlings each to Blantyre Synod’s Church of Central Africa Presbyterian (CCAP) and the Wildlife & Environmental Society of Malawi (WESM).

FDH Bank commits itself to plant 1 million trees by 2024 to be done through its staff members, partners, customers and various stakeholders in support of the World Economic Forum global restorative initiative to grow, restore and conserve 1 trillion trees around the world.

FDH Bank also signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Malawi Forestry Department in environmental and natural resource conservation by adopting Chingale Hills Forest in Zomba, through a sponsorship of K10 million per annum for its sustainability drive.

FDH’s partnership with the Ministry of Forest & Natural Resources comes in the wake of the Ministry’s reforms it is undertaking to engage with stakeholders in its drive to plant 4.5 million hectares by 2030.

In the Ministry’s survey that was conducted some three years ago, it was determined that over 9 million hectares of land has been degraded and plans are to restore half of it by 2030.

The Ministry is also engaging with traditional leaders to impress on their community subjects to positively manage the environment.

FDH Bank also sponsors Green Café program on Zodiak Broadcasting Station as well as annual Green Awards for best media reporting on environmental conservation facilitated by Association of Environmental Journalists.