Bunda Gender Activists together with Bunda Environmental Club and community members on Saturday planted trees at Nkhoma in Lilongwe.
During the exercise, the group planted 500 trees.
In an interview with Malawi24, Head of communications for the Young Feminists Network, Jennifer Lipenga, said the purpose of the exercise was to raise awareness on the challenges faced by women and girls when climate change occurs as well as civic educating community members on climate change.
“We chose Nkhoma community because there is over cutting down of trees and it’s a hill hence lack of trees could lead to a run off.
“Our message was to encourage tree planting and caring for the environment because trees act as carbon sinks that facilitate sequestration hence reducing accumulation of greenhouse gas and minimize global warming,” she said.
Lipenga then acknowledged that climate change affects all human beings more especially women.
She noted that women depend on natural resources to sustain a living and these resources are threatened by climate change when not taken care of by for example excessively cutting down trees.
“Due to women’s reproductive role assigned to them by society when climate change occurs their workload increase as they have to walk long distance to fetch water and other resources that become scarce as a result on climate change,” she said.
She then asked young people to be involved in creating a greener planet by planting trees and facilitating dialogues in communities on gender and climate change.
