Portway Infant School joins Hako in forest planting

Portway Infant School has joined forces with Hako Machines and ForestNation and its ‘You Plant, We Plant’ initiative as part of Hako’s environmental pledge to be a Net Zero company.

Based in Allestree, Portway Infant School is lucky to have a forest school provision within its school site and is always trying to find ways to expand its forest and back environmental causes. For every Hako tree that the school plants, Hako will plant ten trees in the ‘Portway Infant Forest’ in Tanzania. The trees planted in Tanzania are then cared for and harvested by local villagers.

Amy Broad, lead teacher for Eco Schools at Portway Infants, said: “All staff and children are proud and excited to work with both Hako and ForestNation on this initiative. We love any chance to make learning practical and a big part of our science curriculum is learning all about how plants grow.

“By planting these trees with Hako and Forest Nation it also allows us to contribute to the growth and economy of these small villages in Tanzania and is a fantastic learning opportunity for our children to learn and talk about other countries and how the people who live there live. We really enjoyed planting out trees and the children were so excited to know we have a forest named after our school in another country.”

Hako has kindly donated 60 trees to the school and each class will be given the opportunity to plant them and once they are big enough they will be transferred to the school’s Forest School. This means once all the trees have been planted by the school, 600 will be planted in Tanzania.

These will be planted towards the end of the year with the villagers actively protecting the forest from fires and trim the trees in the event of heavy rainfalls for the next five years.

Portway Infant’s Forest will be in the Eastern and Western Usambara Mountain Ranges, where heavy deforestation has ruined the livelihoods of many locals. By providing seedlings to families to plant on their farms, once matured, they will produce a regular harvest, yielding food and potential income.