We are the World

Pollution and Environmental concerns is a global issue! We are not only citizens of our perspective country, but moreover... we are citizens of the world and custodians of the earth.

Did you think it is just "developing" countries with pollution problems?

Waste in the United States

• The United States produces 33% of the world's solid waste, with 4.6% of the global population.
• 80% of US products are used once and then thrown away.
• 43% of dumped or burned discards consists of packaging and containers, or disposable products such as paper or plastic plates, cups, diapers, junk mail, trash bags, tissue paper and towels.

Kalimba Explained~

The production and finishing of one kalimba.

 Who Benefits?: children and women that scour to find and pick empty tins and sell them, craftsman/assemblyman, carpenter, painter and YOU-all benefit from the production of just one Eco-friendly kalimba.

TREE Africa makes our kalimbas locally in Upper East Region, Ghana, with 80% Eco-friendly material,- empowering the community economically and helping preserve the environment.

WHAT IS A Kalimba? called by many different names depending on where you are in the world and which language you speak. Most commonly known as mbira or the African thumb piano. It is difficult to distinguish where the kalimba originates, but almost every source identifies it as originating in Africa being found in the Congo, Zimbabwe and Burkina Faso.

making great use of recycled tomato tins 

Each individual kalimba is uniquely hand painted in Ghana!

100% of your purchase will support our children's program and the NGO (Non profit) in Ghana, West Africa called TREE Africa. The program is working toward transforming Ghana through teaching children the importance of recycling, creativity, education and through embracing and learning African Classical Music. Your purchase will help to support TREE Africa to continue to actively participate in Ghana's National Sanitation Day. National Sanitation Day is a monthly observance in Ghana where we are encouraged to clean our communities and become more aware of our sanitation habits for a healthier environment.  Feel good about supporting TREE...you are helping Africa and the environment! Leave us a message today about how you can purchase an original, Eco-friendly kalimba. 

Thank you for helping us to help others!

Comrades

Together we will go farther!
TREE Africa working with one of our Reach for Change comrades at Environment360 and Adventure Junkies, for their annual "Float Your Boat " event held October 2015 in Accra, Ghana.
TREE trained over 50 children how to make recycled kalimbas and had a great time with all of the other environment enthusiasts!!

Let them create

In our village in Upper East region, Ghana-Wherever we go...we encourage creativity in children. Children are the future of the world. Please look at our buddies being very resourceful after school. To them, they are just having fun. To us, it is amazing! They have made a guitar out of scraps, taught themselves how to play and made up lyrics along with local dance moves! Who said music is not educational?!

Music to my ears~

We are so proud!! Finally-African Classical Music
Thank You Akoma International Academy of  Arts of Sciences! Thank you Zaji Magazine!

TREE is more than National Sanitation Day and Cleaning. Those things are important as well, but TREE has a goal of Transforming our youth. Classical Music will help us.

Congratulations to Akoma for being the first school to implement the African Classical Music Program into their curriculum. 

classes began in September

the children are fast learners!

practicing how to hold the bow

look at her beautiful posture and confidence

the have graduated to holding a real bow..yeah!

NSD 2-Cont.

More pictures of Trash4Books Ghana as we participate in National Sanitation Day in Ghana...
August 1st, 2015. 


Feeling accomplished after a day of cleaning

 

The children's incentive for cleaning...music and dance

Music has a language of its own...positive music inspires and lifts the spirit

We all enjoyed with local dances and songs

NSD 2



Trash4Books Ghana  Team-Upper East Region

Trash4Books Team marching to our clean up site



Help Keep Ghana Clean

We are excited about the progress of Trash4 Books Ghana's participation in our second National Sanitation Day on August 1, 2015!!  In 2012, the Ghana government declared the first Saturday of every month National Sanitation Day in Ghana. Each one of us can do our part in helping our environment and mother earth.

TREE logo

Happy new week bloggers! We hope everyone had a productive week and balanced weekend!
We are working on our new logo! Please vote and tell us which color combination you like. We are producing one with a white background as well! Your opinion and vote matters. Thank you!

Our sponsors

We just want to take this time out to Thank our sponsors! Thank you #UNICEFGHANA #EUROPEANUNION #REACHFORCHANGE!!!  The TREE and Trash4Books Ghana family appreciates you and your dedication to children and the world!

Pleasant Surprise

How many of you have googled yourself or your organization? Well, you should! It will let you know what is in the cyber world about you.
We googled our program Trash4Books Ghana the other day and guess what we found?!

Trash4Books Ghana featured on President Obama's Special White House ‪#‎YALICHAT‬ on Entrepreneurship in Africa. We appreciate the recognition.


https://youngafricanleaders.state.gov/white-house-yalichat-on-entrepreneurship-in-africa/?print=print

Ideas

TREE with our Music Program, is organizing a Music Camp! This camp will be fabulous; unlike any music camp in Ghana and open to aspiring musicians locally and abroad. We want to create an experience the children will never forget. It involves learning classical music with world renowned musicians, gourmet meals, healthy cooking classes with a chef, excursions to plays, symphonies, etc. swimming lessons, beach days, nature walks and much, much more!

Do you have any suggestions/ideas for the music camp? Leave us a message!

Classical Music

Do you want to know what TREE really thinks?
The recycling and education sectors of our program are critical,  but the music unleashes the spirit and then it just trickles down. It is actually the MUSIC that will transform our children and our community; and not just any music, but CLASSICAL MUSIC in particular.

We are using Classical music to help elevate each child, teaching them to think differently and help give them the ability to creatively solve different kinds of problems, therefore, increasing their chances to become community leaders who will show up with their talents to make a difference in the world. When children play an instrument, changes occur in the child's mind and brain, improving attention span and focus, it sharpens memory and improves self discipline, verbal ability and visual pattern completion improve, holistically helping each child. Furthermore, children that play musical instruments have been proven to score higher on vocabulary and verbal sequencing than the scores of non-music playing children.

Our Name

Why the name TREE?
A tree symbolizes life and growth. We thought this name conveys our message and our goal all in a single word. Although there are many branches to TREE, they are all interconnected.

Transforming our society through Recycling, Education and Eco-Music.

NSD

In 2014, The government of Ghana declared the first Saturday in every month as "National Sanitation Day". Seeing as though we love Ghana and our Mother earth, Trash4Books Ghana celebrated its' first National Sanitation Day in Upper East Region, Ghana on July 4th, 2015! We had nearly 200 children from 2 different schools to come out and spend the day cleaning up our community! The children that participate in Trash4Books Ghana, will receive school supplies and back packs filled with books and other goodies as incentives. Each Saturday they come, they can bring their back packs and it is filled with more books and supplies! Trash4Books Ghana!!

*Photo Credit:



Armed with their local brooms, the children came out to CLEAN



The children made their own signs for our first clean up exercise



We all had a great time!



This was one of our biggest helpers!

Honor

Ok...we are up late or early, which ever way you look at it, so we may as well blog.
TREE is comprised of dreamers doing exactly what we LOVE to do....helping others and coming up with real solutions to make a difference in our community. We are so inspired by the individuals and organizations that contribute to humanity and to the betterment of our world.

We are so honored to receive our first magazine feature for our programs Trash4Books Ghana and The Music Program! Please visit www.zajigirlmagazine.com (see us under the Music Project)

Thank you to Zaji Girl Magazine and its' contributors.

Look

Remember to scroll down to click on the pages and read more info on our programs...THANK YOU

TREE

We have so much cool stuff to share with you that we don't even know where to start. We have been so busy that the content of our blog does not even cover everything, but it will at least give u a great over view. This blog is long overdue and we are grateful to be in the company of so many other like-minded cool bloggers! Please share with us how you are working toward making your city, town, country or even the world a better place. One person can make a difference.
Oh, yeah...please respectfully let us know what you think of our blog too...:) We welcome ways to improve and how to better engage.

Yeah

Hello world!!! We are excited to be in the land of blogging...lol
Please check-in at least once a day to see cool video, products and of course upcoming events!!