Rajshahi students plant over 100,000 trees with lunch money

The students of Bagha and Charghat upazilas in Rajshahi district of Bangladesh got their hands dirty on Monday morning planting more than 100,000 trees purchased with their lunch money.

Marking the ‘World Ozone Day’, the children planted 105,000 trees in a bid to save Mother Earth from the adverse effects of climate change, setting up a unique example.

Through two different programmes at the Charghat Pilot High School and Bagha Model High School, the students planted the trees in a coordinated manner.

Bagha upazila’s youth activist Zubayer Al Mahmud initiated the movement ‘Plant tree with lunch money savings’ in 2015. On 12 January this year, Prothom Alo published a report titled ‘Zubayer’s 10,000 trees’.

In the past five years, thousands of students across the country from 750 schools joined the movement. Between 2015 and 2019, the school kids planted more than 350,000 trees for the Mother Earth.

Zubayer also said another programme will be held in Pabna’s Ishwardi and Natore’s Baraigram upazila to plant 100,000 more trees.

The tree plantation programmes will also be executed in Sylhet’s Beanibazar and Khulna’s Dighalia.

“Every year, the trees are planted in a scattered manner. This is the first time it has been done in a coordinated manner on ‘World Ozone Day.’”

“I think if 50 million students of the country plant trees at a specific time of a year, Bangladesh will turn into a green belt soon. Once it’s been initiated by the United Nations, the world will turn into a big forest in no time.”

Upazila parisad chairman Fakhrul Islam was present as a chief guest at the Charghat event while it was presided over by upazila nirbahi officer (UNO) Nazmul Hossain.

At Bagha upazila event, upazila chairman Layeb Uddin was made chief guest while the programme was presided over by UNO Shahin Reza.

Addressing the programme, upazila chairman Fakhrul Islam said, “Take care of the trees as if they are growing up with you.”

“You have made history in the world. Let the tree plantation event happen every year,” said UNO Layeb Uddin.