MEDIA RELEASE
Tuesday 16 April 2019
In April, Nedbank Limited and Food & Trees for Africa (FTFA), committed to plant 750 trees at schools in the Capricorn District Municipality. Nedbank staff volunteers spent an entire week planting trees at schools, in, Blouberg, Ga Molepo, Grootpan, Kromhoek, Mankweng, Mashashane, Seshego, and Zebediela. Through this initiative a total of 25 schools were matched with indigenous shade and fruit trees.
Says Emily Jones, Trees and Carbon Manager for FTFA, “Projects like these enable us to have a wider reach; match more schools on our waiting list with fruit and shade trees that they request.”
The tree planting kicked off on 8 of April at Sekutupu Primary School. Volunteers from Nedbank Limited braved the rainy conditions to assist learners and staff in planting trees at the school.
“We are proud of the partnership with the Food & Trees for Africa in planting 750 trees in the Capricorn District Municipality, more specifically the role that we play to support our communities and enabling better lives for all,” comments Loderick Lubisi, Provincial General Manager, Limpopo. “Our role as Nedbank, goes beyond banking solutions. We play an active role in empowering the communities we operate in.”
Nedbank staff volunteers participated at different local schools, planting trees every day for the week of 8-12 April. Mr Magamatha, principal of Sekutupu Primary was incredibly grateful to representatives from the three Nedbank branches who assisted in planting the trees on 8 April 2019. “Thank for very much for the wonderful event and beautiful trees donated to the school,” he said, “We promise to look after the trees and enjoying the benefits. Halala Nedbank and FTFA, Halala!”
These were planted through FTFA’s Trees for All programme, which plants trees at shared community spaces such as schools, clinics and community centres. The programme focusses on greening under resourced communities and townships across South Africa. In its 27 years of existence FTFA has developed robust support, monitoring and evaluation systems to ensure that the tree survival rate is well over 85%.
These 750 planted trees will offset 704 tonnes of carbon dioxide in their lifetime. Not only will they improve local environments, they will provide fruit to learners and the school community.