By Stanley Onyekwere
As part of measures to help mitigate increasing environmental challenges, Purplehands Empowerment Initiative, an Abuja based Non Governmental Organisation (NGO), has taken tree planting campaign to students of Junior Secondary School, Kuchigoro community, in Abuja Municipal Area Council (AMAC), of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
In particular, to effectively tackle the climate challenges in the FCT, the NGO launched an initiative mentorship strategy tagged: “Purple Hands Environmental Care
Club (PHECC)”, aimed at inculcating and promoting the tree planting culture in the community.
According to the Founder of the NGO, Dr. Brenda Max Nduaguibe, inculcating environnental education into children and youth is very key, as they constitute a large population that can influence the environmental behaviour of their parents and schools are the ideal and convenient place to teach and equip them.
Nduaguibe noted that PHECC will encourage student/members to study their environment and to contribute to solving environmental problems.
She explains: “This Environmental Club would raise the environmental literacy and the children’s total educational experience. PHECC will among other things assist our children and youth to understand the consequences of human activities on the earth and its resources, to understand decisions and actions that can be taken locally and globally to encourage sustainable living.
“Government agencies saddled with the responsibility to protect our environment should show more commitment in partnership
with initiatives such as this and other NGOs are encouraged to embrace and appreciate how vulnerable and threatened socioeconomic life has become.
“Therefore, it is crucial to create the awareness and understanding of individuals and citizens about the relationship between humans for the natural world”.
Responding, Vice President, Administration, Junior Secondary School, Kuchigoro, Nicholas Ukwuka, assured that the culture of tree planting is going to be sustained by the school.
“We are going doing our best to ensure that the environment becomes greener, as we will select students to monitor the trees planted in the school”, he stressed.
