What We Did in 2022

Jan 1

With funding from Belgian NGO, WeForest, we distributed 819,548 trees for carbon offset, economic opportunity, weather modification, support for wildlife, and soil enhancement. This brings the total number of trees planted since the inception of the project in 2011 to over 3 million trees (3,168,570).

Along with tree planting and distribution, the project provided training to 246 farmers and 140 institutions on the planting and conservation of multipurpose trees. Institutions reached include 112 primary schools, 18 secondary schools, 7 churches, 1 mosque, 1 hospital, and 1 public office. Areas covered during the training include tree planting, weeding, thinning, site selection, and application of manure to improve the growth and survival of tree seedlings.

Moving the Kinesi nursery to Utegi has enabled the project to increase seedling sales. The project continues having two nurseries, one in Utegi and the other in Butiama. In 2023, the Utegi Nursery is scheduled to become self-supporting and run as a private enterprise. This is another step toward GRA’s goal of local self-sufficiency.

We planted seeds of 45 different tree varieties in each nursery including fruit, medicinal, timber, ornamental, fencing, and nitrogen-fixing trees.

We have reforested the equivalent of about 6,600 acres of land and served over 5,400 customers since 2011. These trees will sequester about 40,000 tons of CO2 each year.

GRA has collaborated with WeForest, the Tanzania Forest Service (TFS), the Butiama District Council, and the village councils of Kigori, Busegwe, Nyanza, Singu, and Mwikoro villages to prepare a concept note for implementing the “hillside forest restoration and regreening the surrounding landscape project.” This is an eight-year project expected to restore a total of nearly 8,000 acres of degraded hillside forest and the surrounding landscape in the Butiama district starting in 2023. We’ll be providing agroforestry inputs and training to 1,400 subsistence farmers, providing 1,250 beehives and equipment to 250 farmers, and sufficient free tree seedlings to create 1,000 small, private woodlots for firewood, timber, and sustainable charcoal production. All of this will occur in the flat areas surrounding the new hillside nature reserve to provide resources previously harvested unsustainably from the hillside forest.

Total sales of the award-winning Eco-Zoom fuel-efficient charcoal cookstoves have increased to 788 in 2022. Each stove reduces the amount of CO2 produced by about 75% over traditional cookstoves - the equivalent of driving an SUV 7,500 miles on an annual basis. They also reduce toxic emissions by about 50%, helping to reduce the number one killer of children under 5 in Sub-Saharan Africa - indoor air pollution.

The greatest challenge in distributing these stoves is their high price compared to traditional stoves. Since these stoves don’t save fuel and save lives sitting in our office, we decided to drop the price to $22 each – about half our cost. Each family in the Musoma Orphans program has been given a new stove for free. The new “Hillside Forest Restoration Project” in Butiama District is expected to distribute about 1,000 fuel-efficient cook stoves over the next five years.

We continued to grow, process, and sell herbal products at affordable prices to over 500 customers for all types of tropical diseases including malaria, typhoid, parasites, yellow fever, amoebas, and tuberculosis. We also continued to produce and distribute a superfood made of moringa and amaranthus that greatly enhances the well-being of people suffering from malnutrition or living with HIV/AIDS and other chronic conditions.

We provided free remedies for over 150 people most in need like orphans, elders, and the poorest of the poor. GRA herbalist Lucy Ndege also offered consultations for those in need.

The business plan for soap production by our herbal department has been approved so we hope to begin production early in 2023. Soap is a big component of our weekly orphan support so making it ourselves should save us a lot of money – as well as (hopefully) providing some dearly needed revenue.

We completed the 20th consecutive year of the Tumaini kwa Watoto (Care for the Children) program which has supported more than 100 children over the years. In 2022, we provided 26 orphans and their foster families in the Musoma area with food, healthcare, mattresses, mosquito nets, school supplies, school uniforms, and school fees. Another 26 kids were enrolled in college or vocational training and received funding from GRA for tuition, computers, room and board, and transportation. Thirty kids formerly in the program have already graduated from college or vocational school and started families and/or careers of their own.

The Kinesi Village Orphans Program is in its ninth year now. During this time, it has supported more than 75 disadvantaged and orphan children in Kinesi village. The program provides clothes, health care, mattresses, sheets, mosquito nets, school fees, vocational training, and colleague fees for those who achieve that level of education as well as other supplies. Nine of the orphans are in primary school, 18 are in secondary school and four are waiting to join college. Twenty-one of the kids in the program have already graduated from college or secondary school.

GRA’s 8-acre permaculture plot in Kinesi Village has been transitioned to the care of the families caring for orphans in the village including all fencing, storage facilities, and outbuildings. These families have received years of training in permaculture and will now take responsibility for the plot’s management. A village association of orphan guardians was set up some years ago for this purpose.

We still have a permaculture project ongoing in our one-acre office compound in Musoma. There we grow vegetables for employee lunches and herbs for the herbal department.

tara blasco

What We Did in 2023