Kukurantumi (E/R), Nov. 25, GNA - The Ministry of Education (MOE) sector Peace Corps Volunteers and a number of teachers have received training in nursery practices, gardening, tree planting skills and agro-forestry technologies at Kukurantumi in the Eastern Region. The one week training programme was to sensitize the volunteers to transfer the technology to the schools to enable them to set up gardens and plant trees in rural communities in the country. Mr Lovans Owusu Takyi, Coordinator of Trees for the Future, Ghana, who conducted the training, urged the volunteers to impart the knowledge they had acquired to the children and their teachers on the importance of tree planting and school gardening. He said school gardens provided effective practical oriented skill training for agricultural education and could also contribute to the government's school feeding programme and reduce malnutrition in school children.

Mr Owusu Takyi also called on the volunteers to set up Tree Planting Environmental Clubs in first and second cycle schools to enhance their knowledge in nursery establishment and transplanting skills. He said environmentally friendly school gardening practices also provided the school children to take action both in schools and their communities to plant trees to complement the efforts of reducing the impact of climate change.

Mrs Mary Norah, Associate Programme Coordinating Director of the MOE Peace Corps Volunteers, expressed appreciation to "Trees for the Future" for the initiative and support. She said she would work together with the education volunteers to ensure that they organised the students to plant trees in their schools and communities. Mrs Norah said it was the core responsibility of the volunteers and their teacher counterparts to ensure that they planted trees to contribute to climate change mitigation and environmental conservation in the rural schools in the country. Mr Owusu Takyi later donated nursery tools and seeds including moringa, leuceana and albizia to the volunteers to set up nurseries to enhance gardening and tree planting activities. He also presented training manuals for the schools to enable the volunteers to educate the children on environmental and sustainable agricultural practices.