About Us
The Trees4Schools Trust was adopted as the Corporate Social Initiative of the South African division of coffee company Miko's Fairtrade and Fairtrade Organic coffee offering Puro. Internationally the Puro brand already works in partnership with the World Land Trust to purchase and protect areas of precious rainforest in South America. Locally Puro has gone one step further to support the Trees4Schools Trust by donating a percentage of their local turnover to the trust.
Our other supporters include The Vineyard Hotel & Spa, Bowman Gilfillan, Nicole Fox and Ramzi Mansour, Green Weddings, Greater Good SA, Plantwise, Stanler Farms , Gobi, Dreamcor, ALM Software Technologies, Dunlop Tyres, Michells and Stodels to name but a few. Thank you to all our supporters!
Our Mission is:
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To create a mode to plant trees and veggies in as many of our local schools as possible.
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To increase the awareness of our youth and future leaders regarding re-greening, reducing our country's carbon footprint, the devastating effects of global warming and their ability to grow their own food.
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To encourage Miko Coffee's customers and other nice people to match or better Miko Coffee’s pledges.
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To encourage like-minded individuals to work together towards these common goals.
Our Vision is:
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To utilise the project as an educational tool at the schools involved.
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To create a sense of ownership and pride amongst the children, so that the welfare and upkeep of the trees and veggies will be passed on from generation to generation.
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To allow each school or orphanage that receives trees or veggies to then nominate other schools, thereby promoting a sense of fellowship and community.
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To promote sustainability and a continued sense of environmental awareness.
Our motto is: “Give a man a vegetable and feed him for a day. But teach a man to grow his own vegetables and feed him for life”.
Sustainability Pledge
Trees4Schools does not believe in putting trees or vegetables in the ground and hoping that they will look after themselves. We understand that the only way these projects are going to be successful is if we continually follow-up and ensure that on-going education happens with the children.
For this reason a Trees4Schools representative returns at least once a month to check on projects and ensure that the trees and vegetables are being maintained. As a result Trees4Schools works at building long-term relationships with each organization that we work with.
Furthermore each school has to sign a “contract” with Trees4Schools committing to the upkeep of their pledges and should they damage or neglect their donation, they are responsible for covering the replacement cost.
Water is another big issue, especially during school holidays and in low rainfall periods. This is why Trees4Schools makes use of Yo’Manzi (DriWater) when planting in dry months, areas or during holiday periods.