Words by Smiley Team
You're reading Patrons of the Planet, a weekly series where we hear from climate heroes of the global south and the world’s indigenous communities.
My name is Joseph Masembe and I'm a climate educator in Uganda.
It was by complete accident that I fell into environmentalism. I graduated in the midst of the 2008 financial crisis from a law course at Kingston University, London – everything was stacked against me finding work back home in Uganda. But I had an idea to turn things around and create a better future for young people.
In 2011, I launched a festival for children. At first it was just a fun event with bouncy castles, entertainment and talent shows. For the first one, 6,000 children came and off the back of its success, I held a second festival, attended by about 10,000 children. But I knew it could grow even more.
The following year I decided to give the children a project called Little Hands Go Green. Each child received a tree to plant that they could see germinate and grow over time. They loved putting the saplings in the soil knowing that one day they will develop into big trees.
As well as educating children, the project also helped replenish green cover across the country. With one of the world’s highest deforestation rates, we're losing a devastating quantity of trees in Uganda. So the initiative had a dual purpose.
Little Hands Go Green made national news, spreading word of my work around the country. One day, an elderly man got in touch with me from the furthest corner of Uganda to Kampala, a place on the West Nile called Yuma district. He’d seen the news article and hoped I could help his community reforest their land.
When I travelled out to meet him, the community elders were waiting for me. They spoke so passionately about their desire to leave their children a better inheritance in terms of land and trees. I gave him some financial support to buy saplings and the encounter made me realise the full worth of tree planting for ordinary Ugandans.
Since then we haven't stopped. Now, instead of just one festival each year, we have two festivals: one in August and another in December when Father Christmas hands out saplings to children as gifts.
Over the last decade, we’ve planted over 550,000 fruit trees, which have the added benefit of offering a nutritious food source, and have won a National Environmental Recognition Award two years running.
But the best thing about tree planting is the children’s excitement, knowing that if they put a sapling in the ground today, maybe tomorrow they will have fruit.
Patrons of the Planet is a weekly series to amplify the voices of heroes on the frontline of climate campaign work, as told to Blyth Brentnall. Every Tuesday, we meet individuals from the global south and indigenous groups who have risen above increasing adversity to support their communities, conserve nature and protect the planet for future generations.
