Climate Curve

Project Summary / Description:

Blantyre is Malawi's second largest city, with over 1 million inhabitants. It is also the country's financial and commercial centre. It is surrounded by steep hill sides of Mount Soche, Ndirande mountain, Chiradzulu mountain and Michiru mountain.
However the large surfaces of the hill side has been cleared in recent years for construction, fuel, and agriculture use. Deforestation has removed the natural barriers to flooding that once surrounded the city. According to Tamani Nkhono Mvula the executive director of Malawi's Civil Society Agriculture network(CISANET) "The level of deforestation has contributed to the increase level impact of disaster" (Malawi floods and deforestation-Flood list 2015.floodlist.com<Africa<deforestation<Malawi).
This has led to the flooding all over the country and particularly in Ndirande township in Blantyre. production of green house gases have increased due growing of city's automobiles which produce a lot gas. that uses recent years including in 2019. 
It is due to the above concerns and personal experiences as people residing in the city through our Youth led nonprofit organization started the FANTAH PROJECT which is Fighting Against Natural Threats Amongst Humans (FANTAH) project with tree planting as the main project activity. And now we have included the use of improved cooking stoves to further reduce green house gases like carbodioxide, tar and carbon-monoxide which also causes respiratory problems in human health. 
Research has also shown that 70% of Malawians use inefficient cooking stoves. This has negative effects on both the environment and human health. 
The project started in December 2020 up to know

Impact on Underrepresented Groups:

This is a project/solution in which we are using women groups in selected communities around Blantyre. Women have been mobilized and enlightened about our project model of establishing tree forests in their respective communities by using fast growing and maturing tree seedlings. Unlike most companies or organizations doing tree planting , our initiative will not only conserve nature but it will also be generating income for women in a long run. We have involved stakeholders like the District Commissioner and his departments namely youth and environmental departments not forgetting Traditional leaders. Women groups have embraced the idea we yet to conduct a climate Change sensitization in women communities where we will ask for pieces of community land from the traditional leaders. Then we will carry out training workshop on forest management and making of improved cooking stoves. We provide the women groups with seedlings, simple handy tools which will replace heavy forest machinery and general forest guide book. All this will run in 1year but forest management will continue until trees are ready which is from 3-5 years to come. Then we will find companies and individual customers who will be offered unbeatable lower prices. We will have an agreement signed at the beginning of it all that our Organization will be getting 10% of forest benefits. The other remaining seedlings will be planted by the selected communities. Apart from tree planting exercise in these communities, we will also start advocating for the use of improved cooking stoves. We will carry out sensitization campaigns and demonstrations in the making of improved cooking stoves using locally available community resources. This initiative will not only involve women but it will also empower them financially in years to come.