Tag Archives: Uganda

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You can give life, plant trees


Plant trees where they’re needed most. Donate today!

Thanks to you, The Canopy Project has improved thousands of lives by planting trees in impoverished communities around the world.

But our work is not done yet.

Fall is planting season, and with your help, we can advance closer to our goal of planting 10 million trees over 5 years. Together, we can make this happen.

Let’s keep the momentum going. Make a contribution today! You can better the lives of some of the world’s most vulnerable citizens.

You can help the farmer in Uganda, who thanked us for planting trees to fence his land, saving his small farm from erosion, and asked if we could provide more trees to help feed his goats.

You can help the women and girls of Ethiopia, where deforestation forces them farther and farther from their homes to collect wood for fuel, often keeping the girls from attending school.

And you can help the villager in Haiti still struggling to recover from the devastating earthquake in 2010.

Just a small contribution can strengthen these lives and improve communities. Every dollar you give helps us to plant another tree.

Donate today to help the people who need it the most.

Thank you for your support.

-The Earth Day Network Team

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The Canopy Project
I just wanted to let you know that we are $4,500 dollars away from our goal! As Earth Day Network’s tree planting program coordinator I routinely hear stories of thanks and gratitude from the men, women, and children who are impacted by our plantings. Recently, I was told by Henry Kunduba, a farmer from Uganda, that the trees EDN helped him plant has already improved his crop yields – “I’m happy to have planted Calliandra trees as a fence on my land. I also use them to feed my goats. I need more Calliandra so that I can plant on all my land.”  Through your support, we can continue to help people like Henry improve their livelihoods and provide for their families.

— John

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            Help us fight poverty and plant trees in Haiti and Senegal!

We have some good news! An anonymous donor has pledged $15,000 to help us plant trees IF we can match that gift with another $15,000! Please help us reach that goal. Here’s what your donation will do right now:

In Haiti: In the aftermath of the magnitude 7.0 earthquake that struck in 2010, Haiti has worked hard to rebuild and has made significant strides in agriculture, education and economic growth, but there’s much more work to be done. Erosion and a dependence on wood for cooking and heating have devastated the country’s tree canopy. Less than 2% of Haiti’s original forests remain, and most of its people are desperately poor.

Earth Day Network works with local partners to integrate tree planting with farming and community training. Fruit trees and fast-growing plants provide food and biofuel, harvested through sustainable agroforestry practices. Each dollar donated helps Haiti feed its people.

In Senegal: Since 1990, Senegal has lost over 675,000 hectares of pristine primary forest, the equivalent of cutting down a forest the size of Delaware. Each year more and more trees are cut to fuel timber and biofuel industries. As a result, Senegal’s soil has been destabilized and its thousands of species of flora and fauna are being threatened.

By planting trees, The Canopy Project helps restore Senegal’s tree canopy, providing habitats for threatened animals, and fruits used to produce sustainable electricity to run homes, produce goods, and improve family livelihoods.

But we need your help now! The tree planting season in Senegal must coincide with the short rainy season of July through September. Each dollar donated helps preserve biodiversity and adds trees in the most needy villages and farms of Senegal.

Time is short and there is much work to be done. Please help us reach our goal today!

— The Earth Day Network Team
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Eve in Congo


Dear All… A Letter From Eve in Congo

Eve Ensler has been in Bukavu, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) for the last month. Here she shares with you all her experiences with the women at City of Joy, life on the V-World farm, and how she ROSE with women and girls of Congo on 14 February.

Dear All,

First let me begin with the deepest thank you to all of you who believed in City of Joy and have stood by us with your confidence and support. I have spent the month here and all I can say, is you would be proud. Let me start by describing the current state of Bukavu. It is nothing short of catastrophic. In one of the richest resourced countries in the world, the poverty is inconceivable. In a place where it rains almost every day, there is no water.

It is a country with the most fertile green fields, people are starving. There is no electricity. Most of the month the children have been sent home from school as the teachers are on strike. (they have not been paid). Even the policemen are begging for food. The road is better but most of the time we have not driven on it as there are so many reasons for detours. This is the environment our director Christine and her astounding staff face and transcend every day. Then of course there is the issue of security. The month I have been here there have been no incidents, but it feels arbitrary as there is no real political basis for security and one feels anything can happen at any time.

I will not even begin to tackle here the many proposals that seem to be circulating for peace in Congo. They either feel rhetorical or implausible. I think it is safe to say that if Rwanda, Uganda, Burundi were to get out of Congo, if there were real leadership and a functioning government in Kinshasa, there would be change. But that is not the nature of what I am writing about. We made a decision four years ago to put our energy into the grassroots women of Congo, to support their visions, their plans, their desires, their futures. To believe in their strength. To find the support for them to heal from gender violence of all forms, to be trained and educated in skills and their rights, to become leaders in their communities so that they could build a grassroots movement that eventually would be strong enough to transform this country and turn pain to power.

Special thank you to Paula Allen for the photographs featured here.

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Speaker of the Ugandan parliament promises to pass …”kill the gays” bill

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Change.org
Uganda’s speaker of parliament has promised to pass a “Kill the Gays” bill in the next two weeks. Citibank and Barclays wield significant influence in Uganda, but have not spoken out against the bill.
Sign Collin’s Petition

The speaker of the Ugandan parliament has promised she will pass the so-called “Kill the Gays” bill in the next two weeks — she called it a “Christmas gift” for the Ugandan people. The bill would legalize the death penalty for LGBT people and people with HIV or AIDS.

Uganda experts say that one way to stop this bill is to get pressure from banks that have significant resources invested in the country, such as Citibank and Barclays.

Citibank and Barclays together have hundreds of millions of dollars invested in Uganda and wield significant influence in the country, just as banking lobbyists wield influence with Congress in the US. Citibank and Barclays speaking out against the “Kill the Gays” bill might be the best — and only — chance to stop it.

Collin Burton is a Citibank customer who is also gay. Collin started a petition on Change.org asking Citibank and Barclays to speak out against the “Kill the Gays” bill. Click here to sign Collin’s petition right now.

Citibank and Barclays are both big supporters of LGBT rights for their own employees, yet they invest money with a government that is threatening to execute LGBT people. “I expect Citibank and Barclays to live up to the values of equality and fairness, not just list them on their websites,” Collin says.

If Citibank and Barclays speak out against the “Kill the Gays” bill, Ugandan legislators will see that they are risking the business relationships that keep their government afloat.

Click here to sign Collin’s petition asking Citibank and Barclays to issue strong statements condemning Uganda’s “Kill the Gays” bill. The bill could come up for a vote any day, so swift action is essential.

Thanks for being a change-maker,

– Mark Anthony and the Change.org team
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Plant trees to fight poverty


 

Last month, Earth Day Network made a major commitment through the Global Poverty Project: We’re going to plant 10 million trees in impoverished areas around the world in five years.  And we need your help to make it happen.

For every dollar you donate, we’ll plant one tree.

Why trees? Trees reverse the impacts of land degradation and provide food, energy and income, helping communities to achieve long-term economic and environmental sustainability. Trees also filter the air and help stave off the effects of climate change.  

With the reality of increasingly unpredictable weather patterns and more frequent and violent storms and floods, tree cover to prevent devastating soil erosion has never been more important.

Donate today to plant trees where they’re needed most.

It’s the world’s poor whose health and livelihoods suffer the most from the effects of environmental degradation. But while those in poverty bear the brunt of these environmental problems, they contribute very little to the problems’ causes. That’s unjust, and we have to do something about it.

You can do something about it through your generous donation to plant trees in the areas of the world where they’ll do the most good for the most vulnerable populations.

The planet is losing nearly 15,000,000 hectares of forest each year. Through our Canopy Project, Earth Day Network has been working tirelessly to reverse this devastating deforestation by planting millions of trees in places like Uganda, Brazil, Haiti, Mexico and more.

These trees are not only healing the planet, they’re mending local economies and improving the quality of life for those living in extreme poverty. But we have to do more. Please consider contributing to this critical effort today.

Thanks for all your support,

Kathleen Rogers
President, Earth Day Networ