Why not plant trees in Africa during your lockdown ?
While lockdown continues, Northern Ireland charity Self Help Africa has come up with a creative way to stay connected, active – and help plant the planet too.
Households across the country are being invited to join the Tree Steps Challenge, with the exercise targets of participants being rewarded with tree planting efforts in Africa.
The Tree Steps Challenge will plant one new tree for every 5,000 steps that are taken by participants during the month of May.
Head of NI for Self Help Africa, Denny Elliott, said: “Since we’ve been advised to take exercise daily during the lockdown, this is a great way to make that daily exercise count. While maintaining your mental and physical health by clocking up just 5,000 steps a day, you’ll be helping Self Help Africa with our goal of planting 1,000,000 trees in Africa this year.
“We’ve enlisted the help of former boxer Wayne McCullough to share some inspirational workouts but if these prove too ambitious, participants can simply clock up their steps by skipping rope, walking up and down the stairs or doing laps of the garden.”
Participants can sign up individually and as a family and the goal is to keep moving and help Self Help Africa plant the planet one step at a time.
Also, participants will receive a virtual medal, and their efforts will be linked into an ambitious “One Million Trees” climate change initiative that Self Help Africa is undertaking. The charity is aiming to plant 100,000 native trees in Ireland and 1,000,000 trees in Africa this year.
To sign up to the Tree Steps challenge, visit:
xa0https://selfhelpafrica.org/uk/tree-steps-challenge/xa0
and you can see Wayne McCullough’s words of encouragement at:
