Building stable and resilient landscapes.

Project update

10 Jan

Written By International Tree Foundation

Since 2020, we’ve been planting fruit trees in Western Uganda with our partner, Karambi Group of People with Disabilities through the Karambi Food Forestry Project.

Together with our local partner, Karambi Group of People with Disabilities (KaGPWD), we’ve been supporting the local community in Kasese District, particularly people living with disabilities, to plant trees that help them provide for their families whilst restoring their local landscape.

How climate change disproportionately affects people with disabilities

While climate change affects us all, sudden natural disasters can disproportionately affect the access of people living with disabilities to food and nutrition, safe drinking water, health-care services and education.

And for communities living in Western Uganda, the increased occurrence of floods and landslides seriously impacts essential infrastructure and services. These impacts are heightened for people living with disabilities, who already face a myriad of social and economic barriers.

That’s why we’re proud to be working with an organisation like KaGPWD, which strives to improve conditions for people living with disabilities through permaculture and agroecology.

And through our Food Forestry project, we’re planting trees that in future will help provide clean air and water and protect communities from ever more frequent flooding and natural disasters.

Tree planting & garbage collection drives

For the last 6 months, our amazing partner KaGPWD have mobilised the local community to plant 1,000 trees through community tree planting drives across three towns (Mpondwe, Bwera and Karambi).

And we’re happy to report that, KaGPWD are also supporting their local community to live in harmony with the ecosystems they depend on through engaging local volunteers in garbage collection drives.

Sustainable Community Forestry

This project, is part of our Sustainable Community Forestry programme (SCF) which supports communities on the front lines of the climate crisis to develop and implement their own solutions to restoring landscapes and tree cover whilst improving livelihoods.

Thanks to funding from Prince of Wales’s Charitable Fund, ITF is working with 16 partners across 7 African countries to take effective action against the climate and biodiversity crises.