Mon
28
Nov
2022
Since 1992, together with more than 350 schools, we have planted more than 510,000 trees in Sri Lanka. Although the scale of planting at each school is limited, the most significant achievement is that the children who participated in the program have developed a spirit of compassion toward nature and other people.
Mon
28
Nov
2022
When the Children’s Forest Program (CFP) started in Papua New Guinea in 1994, there was a sawmill near OISCA’s training center, and trailers loaded with logs were passing by. When we called out to local people to “start planting trees before it’s too late,” the response from many people was cold. However, we focused on PR activities, including requesting the Governor of the Province to participate in the first activity and inviting newspaper reporters to write articles about it. The tree-planting volunteers from Japan also helped to expand the circle of understanding little by little. The government and society are now changing their mindset, with an 8 million tree-planting project now planned as a national project as well.
Mon
28
Nov
2022
The Central Arid Region, where OISCA operates, is a very dry and difficult to grow tress in the first place. We have been devising ways to ensure that the seedlings grow well by selecting the right species of trees for the land, making the seedlings, and maintaining and managing them, and have been passing these ideas on to the children. By witnessing the growth of trees, children realize the importance and joy of greening and become more interested in the nature around them.
Mon
28
Nov
2022
In Mongolia, where activities are being conducted without training centers or other base of operations, trainee alumni who underwent training in Japan, are playing a central role in promoting the “Children’s Forest Program” activities in their respective hometowns.
Even though they were faced with a different situation than in previous years due to the COVID-19 pandemic, they were able to support the local community by acting as a bridge between them and the community, and were able to implement activities that met the needs of the community while taking advantage of OISCA’s strengths, such as supporting home vegetable gardens and the “Mask Project” in which masks were made with children from the Eco Club and donated to CFP participating schools.
In the future, they plan to focus on activities in southern Mongolia, where the problem of desertification is becoming more serious, as a new challenge.
Mon
28
Nov
2022
Located in Northern Mongolia’s Orhon Province, the school is in an area dotted with GER (Mongolian nomadic mobile homes). It is a relatively new school built in 2015. When the school was first built, there was no greenery in the surrounding area, and through the Children’s Forest Program, over 250 trees have been planted to date, including maples and lilacs. Not only have the children themselves been responsible for maintenance and management but they have also provided environmental education on the importance of greenery.
Mon
21
Nov
2022
The school is located in Pyaw Bwe Township, Madalay Division, in the Central Arid Zone. This is an area that is severely arid and seems to have limited annual rainfall. The school was built for the children by the villagers with their own money, but they were few trees on the site. After leaning of OISCA’s activities at other schools, the principal consulted with the OISCA staff, and in 2021, the Children’s Forest Program started.