KIGALI, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) -- Rwanda on Saturday launched a fresh drive to plant trees in schools as part of disaster mitigation measures to build disaster resilience in all schools across the country.
Local leaders, uniformed personnel and students countrywide planted trees in school gardens and compounds to launch the campaign.
About 10,000 trees were planted at launch events across the country, according to the Ministry of Emergency Management. The target of each school is to plant 2,000 trees within the next one week, it said.
The national launch ceremony took place at EAV Kivumu Technical and Vocational Training and Education School in Ngororero district, western Rwanda, one of the disaster-prone areas of the country.
It is important to involve children in tree planting at early age, so when they grow up they know the importance of trees in protecting Rwanda's environment, said Germaine Kamayirese, Minister of Emergency Management, after the planting exercise in the school.
More than 300 classroom blocks were destroyed by disasters between January and June this year in Rwanda, statistics from of the Ministry of Emergency Management shows.
The Ministry of Environment in Oct. launched a countrywide tree planting season with a target of covering a total of over 43,000 hectares of land with trees over six months.
