KRSF joins hands with Forest Department to implement ‘One Child, One Tree’ Project

Ahmedabad: Dr KR Shroff Foundation (KRSF), a decade-old institution dedicated towards uplifting underprivileged communities through several initiatives, recently joined hands with the state forest department to implement the ‘One Child, One Tree’ project. As part of the project, some 45,000 trees are being planted in Sabarkantha and Arvalli districts by students from across 200 schools in these districts. KRSF has been relentlessly working towards uplifting the quality and standard of education across these schools.

The initiative is supported by the district primary education officials and forest department officers at various ranks, in both these districts. The project was originally the brainchild of Mr Naimish Dave, the district collector of Sabarkantha, who nurtured a vision of Green Sabarkantha. Taking inspiration from his vision, KRSF has taken the initiative to implement this project. So far, some 25,000 trees have already been planted under this initiative by children.

“‘One Child, One Tree’ isn’t just another tree plantation project. The idea behind the project is to engage the students into conserving the environment by making them plant trees and instilling a sense of responsibility towards the trees by making them nurture the trees. Each student will plant one tree whether it is in the school campus, their village or near their home and eventually take care of the tree, water, and nurture it on a daily basis and ensure that the trees survive,” explained Mr Uday Desai, President, KRSF.

Last year, approximately 4,000 trees were planted as a pilot project by KRSF in conjunction with the forest department. The survival rate of these trees is 93%; which is extraordinary. Encouraged by this, the Forest Department and the collector decided to expand the program this year to cover the entire Sabarkantha district.

Some 50 different types of tree saplings were provided by the state forest department to implement the project. A majority of the trees that would be planted by children are fruit bearing trees. This means students will not just work for themselves but for their future generations as the benefits of these trees will be borne by the generations to come. This is an attempt by KRSF to make students understand the importance of selfless yet crucial efforts for environment conservation, among children.

Several teachers employed with government schools in the two districts were actively involved in the project.

Time and again, KRSF has forged collaborations with several other institutions working in different sectors towards addressing a range of social issues, for the greater good of the society.

Over the past decade, KRSF has been relentlessly and successfully working towards bringing about a measurable change in improving the quality of education across some 665 rural schools in 650 villages of Gujarat.

“We are extremely grateful to the state forest department for providing all the necessary support to plant more trees and make these districts greener. In fact, forest department officials, particularly, the range forest officer, district forest officer and the district conservationist of forest in these districts have conducted a series of trainings for teachers across these 200 schools on how to plant the trees and what are the factors to be considered to take care of these trees and nurture them so that they can survive over the years,” Mr Desai, further explained.

To ensure that the project is steered in the right direction after the planting of trees is done, the state government has also developed a portal on which pictures documenting the various stages of the tree plantation and its growth are uploaded from time to time. This helps monitor the progress of the project at multiple stages and ensures that the survival rate of the trees is high.