Topic

"CFP Activities Expanded"

The Children's Forest Program provides children and students with opportunities to plant and take care of trees, and to learn about the relationships between their lives and forests. Basically, participating schools find lots for tree planting and guide children, and in many cases their parents, to plant trees. The children learn about trees, and nurture the planted trees. This process enables the children to develop a sense of ownership, and usually adults in the localities genuinely desire to protect the trees planted by their children. In recent years, students have deepened their understanding through experience about forests and what forests can provide for humans.

Every year in Thailand representatives of CFP schools attend a work camp on the theme of CFP and the environment. The work camp organized by OISCA Thailand in 2002 provided a course about making detergent and dyes with plants from the forests. The participants made kitchen detergents from blossoms of trees planted in CFP and other grasses from the forests. They used pieces of bark to dye clothes. Now, schools that take part in the CFP actively promote these activities to utilize products from the forests.

Schools in Surin Province, Thailand, also produce pleasant tasting juices from various fruits available in the forests and sell it in the markets. Some of the fruits are traditionally known to have high levels of nourishment to increase stamina.

In Indonesia, children planted many "Melinjo" (Gnetum Gnemon) in their CFP forests. Melinjo is also a traditional crisp that is eaten as a snack and made of the nuts from Melinjo trees. The First Karanpandan Primary School in central Java started the CFP in 1998, and the many "Melinjo" they planted five years ago bore nuts. The schoolchildren enjoyed an activity in which they practiced making the Melinjo crisps and afterwards ate the freshly roasted aromatic snack.


	January 2003: February 2003: March 2003: April 2003: May 2003: June 2003: July 2003: August 2003: September 2003: October 2003 November 2003	Rabaul Center Establishes a System for Recycling Life and Livelihood Renovating School Forests for Environmental Education OISCA Makes Contributions to the 'UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development' through the WSSD Elephant Gifts from Surin, Thailand OISCA Graduates Work to Support Palawan T.C. Tree Planting for the "Bridge of Forests Pioneering Women's Training in Bangladesh Fighting Poverty with Silk in the Philippines Mangrove Belt Expands to 50 km in Chokoria, Bangladesh Tree Planting Day with Youth from China and Japan "OISCA Graduates Serve for Community-Building in Fiji"