So the Thing about Trees......

---

Hey all of you. I hope everyone on this blog watched US v Czech Republic last night and cheered their little hearts out, even though we got killed. If not, I may have to remove you from my list for being a traitor. This is your first warning 😊

So in bigger news, I spent this past weekend volunteering up near St. Lucia in a place called Kula Village. We went up for the weekend to rebuild a creche ( preschoold) in the area that was really run down. They take care of 66 children in two little buildings, with almost no help from parents or any outside sources, it is crazy. So we went up there to do some painting, gardening, build some playground equipment and just do whatever a group of 20 can get done in two days. What we did get done was awesome. The place looked great, and I was really excited for how the children would respond when they showed up on Monday. I hope it went over well!

Working on the creche was an awesome opportunity to work side by side with alot of the members of the community, especially the teachers at the creche. We pretyy much showed up and asked what they wanted done, since it was their place after all. I appreciated that set-up. Toooooo often, its -this is what we want to do, rather than, what can we help you with. And the teachers knew exactly what they wanted and put their whole hearts into it. It was great.

The group I was up there with is called Indigenous Trees for Life-I've started volunteering/working/brainstorming with them. All of you will laugh once you hear the description because it is seriously the perfect place for me. They go into the rural communities in the Kwazulu-Natal area, and look for the poorest of the poor, women and children who are heading up their households. This is usually done through talking to social workers or teachers. Once those people are identified they come in for a brief training and learn how to grow trees. They are given seeds to start with and spend the next 3-6 months growing sometimes close to 200 trees in the yards, houses, whereever. Once the trees reach an acceptable height, they are bought by landscapers, parks, private individuals, etc, and the women and children can use the money to purchase food, clothing, etc for their family. In this way, its a program addressing both environmental and rural poverty issues, and goes right to the heart of trying to empower the people. The aim of the program, which is SOO important ot me, is to make these families sustainable, to give them this skill and structure so that they can support themselves. The hope really is that eventually these families won't need us AT ALL.

So while I was in Kula we went and checked out some of the tree-prenuers in The Richards Bay area, which has the highest rate of HIV in South Africa. Here all of the tree growers are children, because so many of the children in this area have no parents or their parents are dying of aids. They use the money and goods they get from selling and exchanging their treees to basically support their family and siblings. Its incredibly, incredibly eye-opening. I'm really so excited to be with this organization, and have already started brainstorming about adding educational components to the project, and basically how I can help. I'll definitely keep all of you updated, and let me know if you'd like more info!!!
I've added some photo's to illustrate.
MUCH LOVE!
Lauren

---

Photos

Creche we were working on
Imagine 66 kids in that little building. Pretty crazy, huh?

Volunteers
Some of the volunteers working to put tires into a playground area for the kids to play on.

Me!
Simone, one of the people heading up the ITFL, and me. eating oranges. Yum

Volunteers
Painting playground equipment

Ta-DA!
The new gardens outside the creche. How pretty!

Tree Nursery
This is one of the tree nurseries that the tree-preneurs have. It is in the backyard outside her house. She uses bottles left along the road to grow her trees in, and goes to fetch water for them everyday. She is currently the best producing tree-preneur in the Richard Bay area!

Tree-preneur and her trees
This girl is a new tree-preneur to the area. She was one of the most beautiful and articulate girls I have ever met. Both of her parents died of aids and she lives with her brother, who had to drop out of school to work for the family when their parents were dying. She is in Grade 12 and wants to go to college, but has no money. ITFL has said that if she can raise 5000 trees this year they will find the money to help pay for her classes at a community college.

Tree-preneur and her trees
This girl is a new tree-preneur to the area. She was one of the most beautiful and articulate girls I have ever met. Both of her parents died of aids and she lives with her brother, who had to drop out of school to work for the family when their parents were dying. She is in Grade 12 and wants to go to college, but has no money. ITFL has said that if she can raise 5000 trees this year they will find the money to help pay for her classes at a community college.