FAITH PATRICIA ARIOKOT

'I planted my first tree at age 12.  I am a climate change activist, a tree planter and a tree planting advocate.  In 2019, after reading about the burning of the Amazon Forest, the largest forest in the world, it broke my heart and sent me into a rabbit hole where I discovered climate change and the dire impacts it was having on our planet. I became a climate change activist. But I didn’t want to be just that. I asked myself, “What can I do to help”? And that is when I set back to default, something I was familiar with, tree planting.

I started by planting trees and giving out seedlings to others, but I noticed that there was little impact being done as many were left to dry out. With many tree planting projects focusing on tree planting “Give a man a fish…… I had to get a niche in tree education and tree planting education. “Teach a man to fish….” Moreover, when you learn something, it is quite impossible to unlearn it.  Through Faith in Trees, I started the Boom Pencil: the plantable pencil, a tool to teach what a tree is and the advantages of planting trees.  10,000 pencils have been distributed. 11 schools reached. Over 5,000 students have become tree planters.

If there is one thing that can help our planet. It is the tree. The soldiers and the lungs of the earth. Plant a tree today.'