INSIDE THIS ISSUE: TREES MEAN LIFE TREES MEAN LIFE TREES MEAN LIFE

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1 UPDATE2017 ISSUE 6 INSIDE THIS ISSUE: 12 MONTHS OF TREE FOODS HOW YOUR CHRISTMAS GIFTS ARE HELPING KOROTIMI TREE AID TURNS 30! TREES MEAN LIFE TREES MEAN LIFE TREES MEAN LIFE

2 Dear Supporter, In 2017 TREE AID will mark its 30 th year. During this time, you and supporters just like you, have enabled us to continuously work with communities living in poverty to make the most of the tree resources available to them. It s a good time to take stock of the world around us and assess where we can make the greatest contribution to development in the drylands of Africa over the coming years is also the year we launch our next strategy. Over the years, your support has enabled us to continue to innovate and tackle issues of poverty and environmental degradation in Africa s drylands. With your continued support, we will make an even greater impact over the coming five years as we scale up our work and launch new projects. Your support will help us lift more families out of poverty, plant and regenerate more trees, increase communities resilience to climate change, and empower more women. By 2022 we aim to be directly helping 300,000 households a year. We hope you will stay with us on the next part of our journey and continue to support our work in dryland Africa we can t do it without you! Your latest issue of Update magazine is testament to how important our loyal supporters are to our work everything you read in these pages has only been made possible because of you. As ever, do get in touch with our Supporters Team if you have any feedback or questions about our work. With all best wishes, and thank you again for your generous support. John Moffett Chief Executive Sign-up to receive TREE AID updates for the latest news, insights and information on how to get more involved. info@treeaid.org.uk Please get in touch if you would like to stop or change the information you receive from us. Tel: info@treeaid.org.uk Website: TREE AID, Brunswick Court, Brunswick Square, Bristol, BS2 8PE Registered Charity No Company No Printed on 100% recycled paper. Please recycle this or pass on to a friend after use.

3 Highlights in this issue Spotlight on Niger Read how your support is helping some of the poorest communities in the world adapt to climate change and extremes such as drought and floods. 12 months of tree foods Let us guide you through a year of tree foods An update on Korotimi Hear how Korotimi is getting on at the tree nursery in Mali Fantastic Fundraising! Take inspiration from our fantastic fundraisers Front cover image: Mariama Ouedraogo from Kizambo village, Burkina Faso, preparing a meal for her family using moringa leaves Get the latest news and insights about our work on our website NEWS --- UPDATE ON CHRISTMAS APPEAL Thank you to everyone who donated to our Christmas appeal thanks to you we raised 28,000 over the Christmas period to help vulnerable families in the drylands of Africa lift themselves out of poverty. See page 9 for an update on Korotimi and the tree nursery that we featured in our Christmas appeal. If you would like to make a donation to our Christmas appeal, please call , visit org.uk/christmas-2016-appeal A NEW STRATEGY FOR OUR WORK This year, TREE AID will launch our strategy showing how TREE AID s work will lift people out of poverty and protect the ecosystems within the communities in which we work over the next five years. If you would like to receive a copy of this when it becomes available, please contact our supporters team on info@treeaid.org.uk or YEARS OF TREE AID 2017 is also the year TREE AID turns 30! Since 1987, TREE AID has worked to help more than half a million people in the drylands of Africa use trees (over ten million in fact!) to lift themselves out of poverty. Your support during this time has been invaluable. Keep your eyes peeled for more details later in the year about our anniversary celebrations and how you can get involved. 3

4 SPOTLIGHT ON NIGER Niger is rated by the UN as one of the least developed countries in the world. It lies on the edge of the Sahara desert, where its agriculture is at risk from the encroaching desert. The people of Niger face severe drought, wide-spread poverty and disease. With little primary education across the country, Niger has high rates of illiteracy. COUNTRY PROFILE The Republic of Niger Capital: Niamey Population: 16.6 million Area:1.27 million sq km (489,000 sq miles), more than twice the size of France! Major languages: French (official), Hausa, Songhai, Arabic Life expectancy: 55 years (men), 56 years (women) PROJECT: Helping communities build resilience to climate extremes Our work with CARE International in Niger is centred on a project to help villagers build their resilience to climate extremes over time. Our project forms part of a broader UK government programme called BRACED which will ultimately help a total of 224,000 vulnerable people adapt their lives to become more resilient to climate extremes such as floods, droughts and outbreaks of pests or disease brought on by the climate. 4

5 HOW WE ARE HELPING FAMILIES IN NIGER 1 Anticipating climate extremes and shocks we help communities develop an early warning system so they can predict when the climate may change, for example by providing radios so villagers can listen to the weather forecast and rain gauges so they can monitor rain fall. 2 Absorbing climate changes into everyday life we help communities cope with changes by helping them set up village savings and loans schemes so that families have money to fall back on if a flood or drought wipes away their crops. 3 Adapting to climate changes to become more resilient in the future we teach communities how to diversify their income so that if a drought, flood or plague of pests destroys their crops they have other options to fall back on such as making and selling shea butter and other tree products. CASE STUDY: TILLABERY, NIGER TREE AID is working with villagers in six communes in the Tillabéry region of Niger to help them become more resilient to climate changes and weather extremes, they will be able to better withstand these extremes and are less likely to spiral into a disaster situation. Georges Bazonga, TREE AID s Director of West Africa Operations, in Niger We train villagers to use seasonal weather forecasts to plan how and when to plant, water and harvest their trees and crops. We also train communities in various crops and farming techniques that fare better with harsher or more changeable conditions such as droughts and floods. This training programme ensures people are better able to produce food and income for their families whatever the weather. As well as the training, we have also provided 20 biodigesters which give the local communities the opportunity to produce their own manure and biogas. We have also set up six market gardens which will grow baobab and other species of trees to sell and for food. 5

6 TREE FOODS In Britain, we might snack on tree foods such as an apple or perhaps a handful of nuts. But for many people living in the drylands of Africa, tree foods fruits, nuts, leaves, seeds and more can mean the difference between life and death. Tree foods in Burkina Faso In Burkina Faso, hunger and malnutrition kills more than 30,000 children every year. It is one of the poorest countries in the world, where 90% of people depend on farming to survive. Almost 30% of the population are suffering from chronic malnutrition. Tree foods can provide families with an income Tree foods also provide families with the opportunity to earn an income. Tree foods can be packaged and sold at market. Nassouri shares her tips for using tree foods to eat and earn a living too: The seeds of the African locust bean tree are some of the most nourishing tree foods. As well as eating them, I also sell these seeds for around 35p a bag, and I use that to buy other foods to vary our diet. Natural disasters such as droughts and floods are increasingly common, and have devastating impacts on the country s food supply. Grain shortages and rising prices of cereals hit poor and vulnerable households the hardest, meaning communities have come to rely on tree foods much more. Our research has shown that tree foods have a great role to play in improving food security and nutrition, but that knowledge of how to use them is disappearing in younger generations. 6

7 CASE STUDY: MARIAMA OUEDRAGO, KIZAMBO VILLAGE, BURKINA FASO Mariama lives in Kizambo village, Burkina Faso, with with her husband and children. Her mother died recently so Mariama has been left to support her extended family. They have little resources and Mariama is finding Feeding families with tree foods Trees can provide a supply of food all year round as they are better-able to survive dry conditions than conventional crops. TREE AID trains families in how to preserve and store tree foods so that they can keep them for many months particularly beneficial during the hungry months when cereal reserves are running low. it increasingly difficult to grow and buy enough food so that the children get the nutrients they need to grow. Mariama already knows the importance of tree foods such as moringa to her family s diet. She grinds up the nutritious leaves of the moringa tree and adds it in to her children s meals to supplement their diet. Mariama is hoping to join a TREE AID project soon so she can learn more about how she can use tree foods to feed her family nutritious meals. She ll also learn how to harvest, preserve, package and store tree foods to give her a year-round food supply, and how to sell this surplus tree foods at market to earn a much-needed income. Your support means we can help families like Mariama s learn the value of tree foods and teach them how to use tree foods to feed their children and earn an income. Our work would not be possible without your support thank you so much. 7

8 12 MONTHS OF TREE FOODS JAN FEB MAR APR January Tamarind fruits, rich in vitamins B and C, are dried and pressed into balls. February and March Moringa leaves, one of the world s most nutritious vegetables, are mixed with cereals. Baobab trees will fruit during this time too. April Mango fruit, packed with vitamins, are eaten fresh or can be dried to be eaten all year round. MAY JUN JUL AUG May to September Shea fruit is eaten fresh or dried. July to September is the hungry season, so families will rely on their reserves of food including the tree foods they have dried earlier in the year. SEP OCT NOV DEC October to December Saba fruit can be eaten fresh. This is the end of the rainy season in West Africa and many other tree fruits, nuts and leaves are ready to be harvested. Families are busy harvesting their tree produce, drying them, and storing for use during the hungry months. 8

9 HOW YOUR SUPPORT IS HELPING -- KOROTIMI AND OUR TREE NURSERY IN MALI Tom Skirrow, TREE AID s Director of Operations, brings us an update from Korotimi s village. Korotimi and her fellow group members are working tirelessly to build this nursery into a source of vital income for the village. She has already made contacts with other villages and has made agreements to sell some of the seedlings, when ready, to local farmers who are keen to use trees to improve their agricultural land. TREE AID has been supporting farmers in the region to increase their skills and knowledge in agroforestry and how best to use trees as a means of improving soil fertility and limiting soil erosion. You may remember we told you about Korotimi in our recent Christmas appeal. She lives in Samine in southern-central Mali, one of the poorest countries in the world. Korotimi and her family were facing a constant daily battle for food as their harvests produce less and less, season after season. But Korotimi got involved in a TREE AID project to develop a tree nursery in the village, and was assigned chairwoman of the women s group managing the nursery. The nursery is both a muchneeded source of seedlings for planting trees in the village but also a source of income from selling the seedlings to other members of the community and to neighbouring villages. We ve already got over 5,000 trees growing in our nursery. We have baobab, moringa, cashew, eucalyptus and many more varieties which will each provide important resources for our village food and money. Korotimi explained to me. We hope to soon expand the nursery. We ve built a well to help maintain the seedlings and we ve got a small area for vegetables to help us grow food. Some of the trees are now almost ready to plant, some of them we ll plant here in the nursery to provide shade while we work. 9

10 FANTASTIC FUNDRAISERS 13-year old Victoria Priestner and her dad, Ian, recently took on a challenge in memory of Victoria s grandfather Arthur to raise money for TREE AID. Victoria (then aged 12) and her dad cycled 700km from Amsterdam to Hamburg over 12 days, raising 1200 in the process. They hope to finish their trip by continuing on to Copenhagen this summer. If you would like to sponsor them in their upcoming challenge, please visit fundraising/victoria-priestner Arthur Priestner lived and worked in East and Central Africa for over 30 years and dedicated his life to environmental and agricultural development and conservation. Victoria and Ian chose to honour Arthur s memory by fundraising for TREE AID to help vulnerable families in the drylands of Africa use trees to lift themselves out of poverty a cause close to Arthur s heart. From all at TREE AID, thank you so much Victoria and Ian, we are extremely grateful for all your efforts. 10 If you d like to take on a challenge like Victoria s or a trek, marathon or even parachute and would like to fundraise for TREE AID, please get in touch with us! You can contact our Supporters Team by info@treeaid.org.uk or call

11 Feeling energetic? Registration is now open for the Royal Parks Half Marathon If you fancy running through London s beautiful Royal Parks on 12th October 2017 and would like to raise money for TREE AID at the same time, join our team! Please contact our Supporters Team on or info@treeaid.org.uk to register. Fundraising inspiration Here s some inspiration for you if you re considering joining our Royal Parks Half Marathon team. TREE AID supporter Rabbi Jonathan Wittenberg (pictured with TREE AID Chief Executive John Moffett, right, and TREE AID supporter Pepe, centre) has taken part in the Royal Parks Half Marathon two years running and has raised almost 6,000 for TREE AID over the years thank you so much Jonathan! He says, TREE AID is a fantastic cause: they help vulnerable people, they help the environment, they help wildlife there isn t a box they don t tick. I m honoured to support them. If running isn t for you... You don t need to be a runner or cyclist to get involved and fundraise for TREE AID, the options are endless. You could host a dinner party and ask your guests to make a donation to TREE AID, you could hold a quiz at work and ask each team to pay an entry fee which will be donated to TREE AID, or a cake sale. If you would like to fundraise for TREE AID please contact our Supporters Team 11

12 THE POWER OF TREES THE TAMARIND TREE (Tamarindus indica) The Tamarind fruit is crammed with vitamins B and C. It s used to make a refreshing drink and can be eaten dried too. Its durable wood is used to make traditional tools like pestles and mortars and the seeds are used to make a make a dye. The Tamarind tree is revered by many communities in West Africa as a spiritual tree and people often pray to it. Tamarind pods and balls. Gifts that Grow You can buy a Tamarind tree as a present for your friends and family for a community in the drylands of Africa. When you choose to give a Gift that Grows, you re giving vulnerable people the chance to lift themselves out of poverty and grow a brighter future. We can send your gift card and information card to you or direct to the loved one you bought it for your choice. Order your life-changing gift on our website or by calling TREES MEAN LIFE TREES MEAN LIFE TREES MEAN LIFE