Youth dress Capital Hill with trees

Youths have a critical role in conserving nature. As such, churches in Lilongwe City mobilised children last Sunday to plant trees behind Capital Hill, the country’s seat of government.

The site, which used to enjoy a green forest cover, has had trees felled in recent years.

In the morning, the Seventh Day Adventist Church youth travelled in buses and cars which parked at the War Memorial Tower in Lilongwe.

Leading the tree planting exercise, Pastor Dr. Elpheus Luwani, who is director of Adventist Youth and Children Ministries of the Malawi Union of the Church said it is high time the country and church invested in teaching children about the importance of conserving nature.

“The Bible tells us that we should teach the children while young. The children themselves have expressed enthusiasm about planting trees. This is why you can see they are doing it happily,” Luwani said.

He added that after the exercise, the children would go into physical exercises to keep their bodies strong for good growth.

“We believe that our children must be physically fit,” he said.

Innocent Chikomo, president of the church in the Central Malawi Conference, said children from over 50 churches took part in the exercise.

“These are churches from the Lilongwe City alone. The children are below the age of 14. We, therefore, asked the city council to give us a piece of land and trees so that we should plant them,” he added.

“As a church, we plan to continue with tree planting in the future so that we help replace the beautiful nature that God gave us when he created the beautiful Garden of Eden,” said Chikomo.

An official from the Lilongwe City Council, who asked not to be identified, said the council provided the trees when it got a request from the church.

“We have given them 6 000 trees. These are; nkunkhu, acacia, mthethe, nsikidzi, m’bawa and mlombwa tree varieties planted on the same place,” said the council official.

The church has, therefore, joined government and citizens in replacing trees which are being felled every day for construction, firewood and farming, like on the tobacco farms.

The church is also a part of those facilitating deforestation as well as replacing the lost trees.