Trees for three communities
Kew Rotary will plant around 1,000 trees in each of three communities in the drylands of Eastern Kenya. We have been doing this in many communities since 2012 to support our environmental projects that use sand dams to retain water under sand to provide year round safe water for communities located near seasonal rivers. The water is safe for personal use as well as agriculture.
Planting trees helps hold water and provides resources like food, medicines and fuel. An oasis emerges, the water table rises and for that community and those around the effects of desertification are reversed. This photo shows the greenery emerging along the river bank from the dryland as the land becomes fertile – fertile enough to sustain trees producing food above the river. We supply the tree nurseries to enable each community to develop its own environment.
Rotary’s Projects to reverse the impacts of climate change
Kew Rotary have led Rotary in Great Britain and Ireland to build around 80 sand dams in Kenya to date. Our partners Sand Dams Worldwide and African Sand Dams Foundation have built over 1000 dams in total. We work with the local communities who build the dams to create a sustainable future. Each dam reverses the impact of desertification and climate change as it develops an oasis. A dam is built on a seasonal river which fills with water and sand when the seasonal rains come. They provide safe drinking water - once full for many dry seasons insulating the communities from the impact of drought. We add environmental protection measures and plant trees and address drought resistant agriculture. If you want to see how sand dams work please view https://youtu.be/dMnQ-PZzlnQ.
We are keen to give the community of Kew the opportunity to join us in these projects starting by supporting us to plant trees.
BBC documentary on areas damaged by climate change
Earlier in 2022 sand dams and our partners Africa Sand Dam Foundation (ASDF), were featured by presenter Ade Adepitan in the second episode of BBC One's climate emergency documentary ‘Our Changing Planet’ series examining the world's most threatened ecosystems and ground-breaking solutions bringing positive change whose impacts in rebalancing vulnerable habitats around the world will be monitored over the next seven years.
Sand dams feature in BBC's Our Changing Planet | Sand Dams Worldwide
Join with supporting us to be part of rebalancing the habitats in the world’s drylands.
How Rotarians plan to help
We plan to continue our support of these projects in Kenya and other countries. Originally aimed at tackling the impacts of drought we now know we also reverse desertification across a wide area around the dams. We want to give our community in Kew the opportunity to get involved.
How you can help
We are keen to raise the £2,000 which we will match with a £2000 donation. Every £50 you contribute will double to £100 and provide around 75 trees. Please donate what you can – no matter how small - and tell friends who might like to join in.
Please can you help us with a donation?
Thank you