The TOS and TS in Kenya have launched a project to educate children on the importance of looking after the natural environment. 
The project started in early May with a visit to the High Ridge Primary School in Parklands, Nairobi. Usha Shah, the newly appointed director of the TOS, addressed the assembly of children, along with special guest, former TS International Vice-President, Mary Anderson. Usha, Mary and others talked about the essential role trees play in the life of the planet and the responsibility of every human being to plant trees and take care of them.
A tree planting ceremony then took place with pupils from all fourteen classes.  Mary, TS officers and committee members planted 26 trees.  Each class has its own special tree and is responsible for taking care of it. The circle in which the trees were planted has been named The Theosophical Garden. For the moment it is a little bare and if it is to be called a garden, Usha thinks that a few shrubs and flowers will need to be planted to lend colour to the area.

The next part of the project will consist of a painting competition on the theme “Scenes from Nature” for lower primary classes and an essay competition for the middle primary classes on themes also relating to the importance of Nature.  The upper classes will take part in a speech contest and will be challenged to come up with a project to reduce the use of plastic bags. When this part of the project will be taken up is anybody’s guess because right now Usha has her hands full with the emergency food relief project reported on elsewhere in this newsletter. She is also helping with an income-generating project for 15 needy women that involves teaching them how to make dairy products and cow dung fuel cakes.
In the long run, the plan is for all the pupils at High Ridge Primary School to spend a day cleaning the area around their school and to make a trip to the Karura Forest to plant more trees.  In all, a hundred trees should be planted at the school and in the forest. They will include fruit trees, indigenous trees, medicinal trees and shade-giving trees.

Usha reports that this is a pilot project and if successful will be taken to two more schools in 2012 or 2013.
 

Usha Shah addressed the pupils and talked about how trees are like human beings in that they need to be nurtured and taken care of.  To look after our trees and the environment is our way of thanking the Supreme, said Usha, especially trees as they give us so much. When she asked the students what trees give us, they mentioned flowers, fruit, shade and oxygen.

Present at the tree planting from left to right: Pauline (Head Teacher), Mary Anderson (Guest of Honour), Miss Sarla Maroo (Chairperson of Nairobi Lodge), Navin Shah (General Secretary of the TS in East Africa, and a teacher (High Ridge Primary School).

Here we see Mary Anderson addressing the students about love in its different forms, including love for the environment. The children were fascinated by her and listened attentively.

Mary is planting the first tree assisted by a boy scout, with others in attendance.