EMPOWERING GIRLS, SECURING FUTURES
Branching out for a brighter future. Govt's Adopt-a-Tree initiative empowers girls in Busia County to stay in school, combat GBV and early pregnancies
The government, through the Department of Economic Planning, has launched a program that will help girls continue with their education, controlling early pregnancies, Sexual Transmitted Infections(STI) and HIV/AIDS by involving them in the tree planting and care exercise in schools where every students will be tasked to plant a tree and care for it untilll it matures.
Launching the program at Siera Girl's in Nambale Constituency, Busia County, the Principal Secretary in the department of Economic Planning, Dr Boniface Makokha has noted that Busia County is amongst the top ten counties with high cases of gender based violence leading to girl school dropouts and early marriages.
"What we are doing is through adopt a fruit tree initiative, the adopt tree campaign initiative is to keep the girl child in school since education is the bedrock of development, therefore I call upon everyone to support the initiative and ensure its success" ~ PS Dr.Boniface Makokha
He has sent a stern warning to perpetrators, saying that the law will not relax its stance against them, urging parents and the community to embrace girl child education.
"In many times, girls have been violated but we want to set the example here, then we visit all schools in the entire region to ensure the standards are achieved and our girls are protected from perpetrators "
Over 600 trees were planted .
