Solidor plants a tree in Africa for every door sold for Charity

Solidor quite rightly claim to lead the way in high quality composite doors and have now made an agreement with RIPPLE Africa, to donate 20 cook stoves and 2,500 trees as part on an on-going support programme for the charity, which supports families in Malawi.

The initial donation by Solidor is for 20 Ripple Rockets, which are safe and  energy efficient cooking stoves for families, in a country where over 90% of the population use wood or charcoal for cooking. Also, in a recent survey carried out by RIPPLE Africa, it was found that 60% of households had a family member who had been badly burnt either by falling into a traditional three-stone fire or when their clothes had caught fire.

In addition, Solidor have also contributed to the growing of 2,500 senna siamea seeds in small polythene tubes, which will provide a sustainable source of quick-growing fuel wood. On going, the company will donate one of these for every composite door sold. It’s a generous gesture to the people of Malawi and will also be better for the environment, something covered in the company’s comprehensive ‘Green Promise.’

RIPPLE Africa operates in northern Malawi and has been involved with tree planting and fuel-efficient cook stove projects for a number of years. The charity works with communities to provide an integrated approach to the cooking stove and fuelwood problems. There is an awareness programme to highlight these problems and to introduce more sustainable methods to resolve them. These methods comprise of making compost, planting fuelwood and fruit trees at household level, and providing fuel-efficient, safe RIPPLE Rocket cook stoves which are made entirely out of locally sourced, natural materials.

Gareth Mobley, managing director of Solidor comments: “RIPPLE Africa is an important charity, contributing to the welfare of families in northern Malawi. It also involves the adoption of processes that are far better for the environment, much like our own business operations. We’re looking forward to proving them with many, many tree plants over the coming years, as we continue to build the presence of our featured packed composite doors in the market.”

Trees in Malawi are being cut down at an alarming rate. An area of forest the size of a football pitch is cut down every 10 minutes. This tree planting project is centred in Nkhata Bay District, Malawi, Africa, an area of 4,000 sq.km which is about the size of Kent.

Since 2006, we have helped 176 community tree nurseries to plant over three million trees, and we estimate that 3,000 people have worked on this project. However, we have had to reduce this project due to a reduction in funding and now support 100 community tree nurseries where we are concentrating on improving quality in the nurseries and the planted areas (please see our Step-by-step Guide). We are planting a combination of indigenous, exotic, and fruit trees. The main aims of the project are: • to provide sustainable timber in woodlots for firewood, building, etc.;

• to restore degraded land by planting indigenous trees;
• to provide additional food using fruit trees and nitrogen-fixing trees; and
• to help conserve existing forests.

To Find out more about the great work we are helping with visit www.rippleafrica.org

The overall goal of this project is to preserve the existing natural trees and replace the large number of indigenous trees that have already been felled in the Nkhata Bay District. This will be achieved by planting large numbers of trees which will provide sufficient wood for future activities, i.e. cooking, brick burning, etc. The project will only work with the help and cooperation of the Chiefs and their local communities, and an ongoing training and education programme will be maintained to promote sustainable use of the natural resources for the future. This programme will greatly benefit women in the area as they will be encouraged to work with and learn about tree nurseries, mbaula (fuel-efficient wood burning cooker) production, etc.They will also ultimately benefit from abundant supplies of sustainable locally sourced wood. In addition, agriculture in the area will benefit from the use of agroforestry trees which will help to improve the soil fertility.