 Kenaga kwa hamuwa kwa kutupikunara, minangumiaaa ni, 3rm yafeza, na walaun사 kwa hizi siinu kwa kutupikunara kwa kutupikunara wa kutupikunara nama mga nekawuwa, makasunarai 9212 na autonomy kwa kukunara, kwa kutupikunara hizi kuormiya 1 milko kwa kuhilumiaa mpa kutupikunara pasiluniaa kudupikunara mi, kubuuwa kwupika, yaf E-iggit wa akusu-kuka, kutupikunara nama mka nierobi, kutupiki tiaffha, kwa mathiwa kusitia kwa kitanaziki tanide matiwa ngaweza mahala hawa ntkoha za hawa ntkohwa wa ayawa kwa mgaweza kfade na matiwa ngaweza matiwa ngaweza Kenya Tadi Qunendzwi, kwa makaregua seidbolat wa loja awa kukuswao kwen저 Kwa mgaweza matiwa mgaweza mahala na mahala na 11iai mahala kwenploja kwenJo, uva kwengo wa kwenye wa kwenye kwa karima mawa nasigiawega wwajati, wajati wajati tumadu manufactur cosesi kaka mwili, kwa kwa wawali wajati kaa. Na kwa gawafisha nasi nanu. Erumia kula kya, yungi yungi, dusi Yungi tulia wajati, kwa mawa yungi wajati kwa kwa kwa kwa kwa kwa rwa kwa wajati? Korunia kwa kwa kwa kwa kwa bwili, kwa wajati kwa kabutel식iawe wa rwa kwa kwa kwa kwa kwa kwa wajati. Yungi wajati kwa kwa kwa kwa kwa kwa wajati. watu kuxteja njiaje programilwa n lenu lute joining Kenya n materials of thousands of years,ave ni yaehi hana kufi vs. creative trees alternativesất Kakus craneh neckuana kcha ufinii da hiwa nan I am a Rotary member of Rotary Club of Nairobi South. I am a past president, but this year I am the projects director. I got to know him a long time ago. I have known him since he was born. And his father was into energy conservation. He started making the kimaki jiko. And I am sure that every household has them because all the Jua Kali centers were taught how to make them, some copied them and they are all over the place. So many, I would believe that almost every household has a kimaki jiko. That's what his father invented. He took that over and started making even bigger jikos that he is even exporting abroad, which you can bake in them and you can also choma nyama. You know in Kenya we love nyama choma. Yes, so he now has innovated the seed balls, which we can throw out into the open or you can grow them in your houses. You can grow them as fences around the houses. Some of the seedlings have short growing trees. Seed balls Kenya decided to reassess and repackage seeding, making the process of spreading seeds easier and efficient. The main motivation behind the seed balls program was really to look at a way of reducing the cost for people to participate in forest restoration, specifically in the dry land parts of Kenya that have been historically producing the most charcoal for all of the urban areas in the country. So the big benefit from society on the initial thing is energy security. We know that 60-70% of Kenyans cook with solid fuel, with firewood or with charcoal every single day and we've been doing that for the last 50 years almost. Sometimes when we actually find this charcoal dust that we buy from the guys selling in the marketplaces, we find coins from 1920 in the very bottom, those coins have the hole in them. So it shows Kenya has been consuming charcoal and trees for 100 years and being able to make sure we not only regrow what's been cut but grow a new batch of trees to use in the future is critical. And then all the ecosystem services, trees provide rain, they hold the soil, they provide the habitat for all of the insects and the birds. And from not only again, not only just trees, not only grasses but so many other indigenous plants, all of the beautiful wildflowers, we have 6,000 different types of plants that are indigenous to Kenya. If we can bring that to more people to be able to grow and enjoy and benefit from, I'll be a very happy man. Tree planting programs aim at boosting the country's forest cover. Probably one of my biggest achievements and as a whole organization's biggest achievement has really been is bringing tree planting to be a very fun and enjoyable thing. You know, for now as a kid, I love my teachers from school but tree planting was punishment. You know, if you do something wrong, you have to carry water, you have to go and weed them. And as a 10-year-old boy, I remember thinking, you know, meaty nimbame, it's making me do extra work. And I don't think that's a message we want to tell the youth. You want to be able to tell the youth, you can become a pilot one day, you'll be flying an airplane, throwing seeds, you can become a scientist learning about this type of medicine from that tree or whatever. And especially this engagement of fun things like using the slingshot, the little payoff for shooting the seeds. You know, that's something that I think imprints in young people's brains that the environment is fun, the environment's cool. This is something really good to be doing. And that's one of the most important things we need to be teaching people today. How it works is say you're our customer and you might be from, you know, Kisumu or Voi or whatever, we work backwards and we ask people what are the indigenous trees that people are cutting down where you're from? What are they cutting for charcoal in your village? That's what we need to plant more of because it means they're being cut and it means they grow there naturally. So we try to always work backwards with our customers and advise them to grow more of the same thing that occurs in their part of Kenya. For the manufacturing process, first off we go to Kefri, Kenya Forest Research Institute. We work with a wonderful man there called Mike Meso who organizes all the seeds and everything. And then we buy the charcoal dust from the people in the markets where they're selling it, bring all of that to Langata, to Chardas Limited, where my friend and co-founder, Alson Karstad, now works as magic and makes the seed balls from their distribution typically. And it's amazing this day and age because so much is M-Pesa and you can sand on G-Forest or Fargo. So, you know, we get a call, I need five kilos of tree seeds. I'm in Loduar, I'm in Narok, I'm in Wajir, I'm in, you know, you name it, Kwale or whatever, send them out to those people with some planting tips and then do follow-ups on how did it go? How is it working? Can you send us a map pin so that over the years to come we'll be able to see what the success has been with doing this direct seeding. As with everything, there are always challenges. Anything new, of course, is sometimes challenging to explain and show how it's working. Trees, of course, don't grow very quickly. So, you know, people are impatient in this day and age, everyone's Instagram and Facebook and I need results today. So to encourage people to think about 10, 20, 30 years in the future is sometimes challenging. And then, I'd say, the only other really biggest challenge, you know, luckily we're not so many. We've had the ground paved by wonderful ladies like this, people Wangayima Thay who've been able to teach so many people about the importance of the environment. So at least we have that foot, you know, our idea in the door. Teodo is also involved in several other projects beneficial to the society. So with our main business of the Cookswell Energy Saving Jikos, we help people set up baking businesses, we learn how to do baking as a business with the ovens, we do a lot of outreach on teaching people different uses different uses of charcoal. So you don't only make charcoal for cooking, you can also make charcoal for soil, for growing, the biochar is called. You mix it in with the soil. There's a method that you can catch the smoke during the charcoal making and make something called wood vinegar that is actually more expensive than even the charcoal itself. We've even actually made charcoal earrings for ladies that are very trendy and fashionable. So we really like to try and look out the entire value chain behind dry land trees. What are all these different alternative products that people are able to commercialize sustainably? For a program to be successful, you can't do things alone, you have to have partners. And we've been incredibly lucky from the very, very beginning within my family business. I work with my two older sisters and my mum and they're my best partners and best supporters in the world. And my girlfriend Nadia who does lion conservation, so she's in the conservation arena, almost all of my good friends that I've grown up with. Some work in elephant conservation, some do energy saving buildings. So it's been really wonderful having that social support network of like-minded people who love the environment. Beyond that, it's so important to engage with all types of different groups like Nairobi Rotary Club who is so interested in helping build a better country and a better Kenya in the future that is more green with more forests. We've had wonderful luck with so many different tourism partners all over Kenya. When the tourists come and go on vacation they're able to take seed balls and plant them. Churches, mosques, Hindu temples, schools from high school to university to primary. So we've luckily had tons of different wonderful partners. Awesome, good local press like KVC's helped spread the word about what we're doing. And I think with anything especially to do with the environment because it affects all of us you have to do it all together. Supporting the environment will give Rotary Club members even more ways to create more positive impact in the society. My name is Liz Kitonga. I'm the current president of the Rotary Club of Nairobi South and at Rotary what we do is serve the community. Actually our theme for this year is serving the community. So what we have planned for this Rotary year is mostly to conserve the environment and to plant more trees, to clean up rivers, to clean up all these garbage and all that. We're hoping to work with the county government and the other organizations to clear up the environment as much as possible. We also have a project to empower youths. We have a project to empower youths. We are going to engage people living with disabilities. We are going to teach them some skills to just empower them to have something to do to make themselves economically stable. And also we have some other projects. We have a mother and child project that was started last year by the past president. So the project basically is just to plant spinach and kumawiki to then we give them that is done at Makongeni dispensary in Thika. So we planted some vertical gardens last year and we are hoping to increase those vertical gardens this year to get more people involved in this. And also we normally have a project in December where we normally last year we didn't do it because of the COVID situation. We normally get people from children's homes people from elderly homes all these disadvantaged people. We normally bring them together and take them out for a day outing like at Westgate shopping mall whereby they just enjoy the day because these people they hardly ever go out. They will be brought for food. They will be brought for cloth and all but nobody ever takes them out. So we also do that. Another project we do is we normally have a day also for outing whereby all the rotary clubs come together and we have a big rally there are musicians there is food there is everything organized transport for them to be brought into one particular place whereby we just give them entertainment for the day. Personally I am very passionate about environment. My year actually started this year in July just the other day so because I am passionate about the environment and one of our members is also passionate about the environment and to know the field so she invited him to come over and work with us. So that's where we are now and we are looking to work with him. We will also work with other clubs we have RC Kikuyu who are already on board we have RC Gikiri who are already on board we have a rosa rakta club who are already on board and we are hoping to approach other clubs to come and work with us. In his final remarks this is what Teodo had to say. There couldn't be anything more important for this generation that we are living in and this time in the world for people to realize how not only how important it is to do good things for the environment but the job opportunities that are involved in that and from being a climate change scientist to being a simple tree planter to just using one less plastic bag when you go out to thinking about where do you buy your clothes where do you source all of your products you know are you shopping ethically are you thinking about the producers the social impacts that right now if we don't all get on board with doing that if we think we have problems in the world today just it's going to get worse if we don't change how we all live and how we all behave and consume at the end of the day.