Daniel Hosts Virgin Unite

VIRGIN UNITE VISIT PROJECT IN DUMPHRIES VILLAGE AND PLANT TREES

Having been contacted by Lindsay Tite, the Manager of Pride ’n Purpose and informed that the sponsors of the Welani Project intended to visit the Welani/Mahlahluvana project early in January 2009, the Senior Project Officer of Food & Trees For Africa, Daniel Chitungo, in consultation with the FTFA management cut his leave short to attend to the visit. Planting material like trees and compost were purchased and brought on sight and holes for tree planting were dug before the visitors arrived.

On the 8^th of January 2009, 28 delegates from Virgin Unite visited Mahlahluvana Permaculture Project hosted at Mahlahluvana Primary School in Dumphries Village in Bushbuckridge area of Mpumalanga Province. After brief introductions, FTFA pamphlets were distributed and the visitors were willing to share a few pamphlets as opposed to having one for each person. The delegates were addressed by the FTFA Senior Permaculture Project Officer, Daniel Chitungo who briefed the delegation on FTFA’s programmes with emphasis on the carbon standard and the project’s progress. One project member from the community, Mr Xokolo Ubisi addressed the visitors informing them how the community and the learners in particular benefitted from the project and how they appreciated the sponsorship secured from Virgin Unite.

There was a roar of applause when the visitors heard from The FTFA Senior Permaculture Project Officer that they were going to plant trees at the school site as part of the programme on their visit. Daniel and the community members demonstrated on how to plant a tree. The visitors were then put into groups and planted five other trees in the school yard. Danny Pang jokingly said, “I will do tree planting as my second profession”. His lovely very young daughter, Blair Pang, energetically and enthusiastically wanted to experience everything about tree planting and said that she loved tree planting because they have trees at their school. One should have seen the energy she had, even holding the spade, never wanting to be left out of any single activity taking place. She even said that she likes planting trees because at their school there are trees. It was a wonderful experience for the community members, teachers and the visitors to do the tree planting activity bringing them closer to each other for one common goal. The visitors were then taken to the permaculture garden where they saw the different designs with fruit trees, herbs and vegetables before posing for group photographs of the visitors and the hosting project members.

30 January 2009 09:37 AM I have been meaning to write this email for a while now - but I would just like to say a VERY BIG THANK YOU - to Daniel for the 8th January. Daniel did such a superb job and is a great ambassador of Food and Trees for Africa. Thank you for taking the time to spend the day with us and for organizing the trees to be planted! A great day was had! Lindsay Hanekom, Pride 'n Purpose Manager, Pride 'n Purpose - Ulusaba's community footprint, Ulusaba - Sir Richard Branson's Private Game Reserve. Tel. +27 (0) 13 735 5460, C: +27 (0) 83 406 1555, Pride@ulusaba.virgin.com, www.ulusaba.virgin.com, www.virginlimitededition.com