Towards achieving a safer ecosystem, the Dangote Group in collaboration with the Nigerian Conservation Foundation (NCF), has commenced a tree planting campaign.
The campaign aimed at creating awareness and preserving the environment to align with the United Nations 2021 World Environment Day theme, ‘Ecosystem Restoration,’ which kicked off in some public and low-income private schools in Ikoyi, Lekki/Ajah and Victoria Island, Lagos.
The programme was implemented through employee voluntering. The volunteers were drawn from Dangote head office in Falomo, Ikoyi, in collaboration with officials of the Nigerian Conservation Foundation (NCF). The volunteers planted trees at designated school premises to ensure a healthier environment for current and future generations.
Accordingly, the objective of the collaboration was to plant 200 trees in 10 schools, and create awareness on environmental responsibility and stewardship among school children.
The initiative, led by a team drawn from the Sustainability, Environment and Health, Safety, Security and Environment (HSSE) Departments of the Dangote Group is in line with the organisation’s mandate of giving back to society, especially the host communities and the less-privileged.
The group visited Ilasan Community Secondary School, Ilasan (Lekki); Gbara Community Senior Secondary School, Gbara, Jakande (Lekki), and Ikota Primary School, Ikota (Lekki); Aunty Ayo School, Ikoyi; Falomo Senior High School, Falomo; and Government Senior Secondary School, Maroko, Victoria Island; where tress were planted.
The forum attracted General Manager/Head of Sustainability Dangote Cement, Mrs. Eunice Sampson, SGM/ Head, Community Affairs and Environment, Dangote Cement, Tukur Lawal and Yetunde Ogunnowo of Branding and Communications Department as well as Lead Environmental Education, Abidemi Balogun and NCF representative.
Speaking on the exercise, Sampson, said: “The theme of this year, ‘Ecosystem Restoration’ is very apt and timely. We depend on our ecosystems for survival. The only way our ecosystems can continue to sustain us is if we make deliberate efforts to sustain it. A degraded ecosystem cannot possibly provide us with the resources that we need to thrive; neither can it support needs of future generations.”
Balogun said: “The environment is borrowed from the future generations; we should endeavour to use it well. Posterity might never forgive us, if we don’t.”
In his remarks, Lawal said, “Our partnership with the NCF will further ensure the sustainability of these ecosystem restoration initiatives.”
