Lionel Ngukusenge (18), a Burundian refugee in Kenya staying at Kakuma refugee camp, has planted 70 trees at his homestead. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo/IPS
By Jeffrey Moyo
KAKUMA, Kenya, Aug 11 2025 – For 18-year-old Lionel Ngukusenge, a refugee from Burundi, where he was forced into hiding because of a repressive regime, he has found another foe to contend with at the Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya: climate change.
Against all odds, Lionel, a Grade 9 student at Future Primary School, has planted 70 trees at his homestead in the refugee camp, which accommodates 300,000 refugees and has over 7,200 learners.
There are only 23 teachers at Lionel’s school, where each class has 209 learners, after 48 teachers were retrenched this year following the US government aid cuts to the organizations assisting refugees in this East African nation.
In the arid Kakuma refugee camp, 800 kilometers northwest of Nairobi, Lionel’s school also has students from South Sudan, Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Somalia and Afghanistan.
“I’ve planted 70 trees at home because I learned the importance of trees. While doing my homework, I sit under the trees I planted. The oxygen is fantastic. I feel proud,” Lionel told IPS.
He (Lionel) is one of the refugees ‘weaponizing’ tree-planting to contend with climate change.
A difficult task, according to Kenya’s Department of Refugee Services in the Office of the President, because the trees have to be watered using the scarce precious water.
This, said the camp manager, Edwin Chabari, is rationed at 18 liters per head daily.
Nema John Zechariah (22), who eight years ago arrived in Kenya fleeing from conflict in Sudan, said tree planting is not new to her, as she started it in Sudan, planting fruit trees and fending off hunger amidst a raging war, as there was hardly enough to eat. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo/IPS.
Kakuma is a Kenyan town in northwestern Turkana County, an arid region experiencing extreme temperatures as high as 40 degrees.
Despite these challenges, refugees like Lionel are managing to survive.
They are planting the Neem tree, an exotic tree known to thrive in arid regions.
Kakuma, a Turkana name, means “out of nowhere,” owing to the remote conditions of the place. Now, despite the hostile climate and environment, it has been home to fleeing refugees since 1992.
Non-governmental organizations like the Girl Child Network and the Education Above All Foundation, based in Qatar, support the learners’ tree-planting efforts.
Kenya’s Girl Child Network deputy director, Dennis Mutiso, said, “They (the youths) are a resource that can be used to reverse the current trends of environmental degradation. We are making deliberate efforts to make sure that they start passing the knowledge from the school to communities so that the project can be sustained.”
In schools and in homes, tree planting has balanced deforestation and desertification fueled by hundreds of refugees dependent on firewood at the Kenyan refugee camp, the biggest in Africa.
However, the latest aid cuts in Kenya have not spared tree planting, according to government officials.
Chabari said that some NGOs and partners who were helping with climate action have not been funded, and that the effects of climate change will be felt by all.
“The support from Girl Child Network came in at the right time. We have been trying to train our learners to plant as many trees as possible. The trees are not only being planted in schools but also at home,” Joseph Ochura, Kenya’s Turkana West Teachers’ Services Commission director, told IPS.
According to Ochura, the heat is abnormally high in Kakuma, forcing learners to start school at 6am because by midday, it would be extremely hot.
That has not deterred learners.
In this war against the heat, 17-year-old Baballa Samir, a Sudanese national who came to Kenya in 2020 fleeing from conflict and is now doing Grade 8 at Arid Zone Primary school in Kakuma, said in the five years he has lived in Kenya, he has planted 35 trees.
Tareeq Al Bakri, Program Specialist at the Education Above All Foundation, said, “Although Kakuma remains a very arid and challenging environment, learners’ involvement in tree planting has led to increased awareness and ownership of environmental stewardship among youths.”
Founded to cater for pastoralists, Arid Zone Primary is one of the oldest schools in Kenya’s Turkana West. It opened its doors to learners in 1986 with 300 learners.
Decades later, the school has 2,500 learners, with just 20 teachers.
An aspiring medical doctor and a climate change warrior from way back in Sudan, where he planted over 50 trees before fleeing, Baballa has planted more trees in this part of Kenya.
His message to the world is clear.
“I urge other young people to conserve the environment by planting trees because trees are important for air purification, and they are also sources of medicine,” he said.
Edukon Joseph, the principal at Arid Zone School, says, “The beneficiaries of tree planting are definitely the learners.”
“Learners take the knowledge to their parents, spreading tree planting outside this institution,” said Joseph.
Attending the same school with Baballa is Patrice Namwar, a 15-year-old Kenyan boy in Grade 9.
Namwar said he has planted 30 trees and 10 more at his homestead.
“We were taught by our teachers that one tree alone absorbs 25 kilograms of carbon and I asked myself, what if I plant 100 trees at home? Global warming will be reduced, because let’s say 25 kilograms multiplied by those 10 trees I have planted in my home—that means 250 kilograms of carbon would be reduced. When we plant more trees, this place will be a place to live in,” Namwar said.
Like Baballa, 16-year-old Grade 9 learner Sharon Ayanae at the Arid Zone School said since 2023 she has planted 35 trees at school, with six more at her homestead.
“When we plant trees, we reduce the temperatures caused by the sun here in Turkana and some trees help us with food,” Ayanae, who is Kenyan, said. In total, 900 trees have been planted at Arid Zone School alone.
At the boarding school, firewood is used for cooking for the learners; however, the tree planting has helped balance the losses.
That has had a growing impact on Kakuma’s arid conditions, according to Virginia Wanjiku, a teacher at Arid Zone school.
“Nowadays in Turkana, we have rains because of the tree-planting initiative. Tree planting has really helped us,” said Wanjiku.
Girl Child Network’s Mutiso said that currently in the Kakuma region, “We have managed to plant 645,352 trees, and we hope to have planted about 850,215 by the end of this year.”
Some deeply traumatized learners, who have been affected by raging wars in their countries, say that tree planting serves as therapy.
Najila Luka Ibrahim, 16, hails from Sudan and is currently in Form 3 at Blue State Secondary school in Kakuma.
She does not know whether or not her parents are alive after she fled from the conflict.
“Before, I just kept to myself, but when I joined the environmental club at school, I interacted with many people I didn’t know before. Tree planting changed me,” said Najila.
Attending the same school with Najila is also 22-year-old Nema John Zechariah, who eight years ago arrived in Kenya fleeing from conflict in Sudan.
For Nema, tree planting is not new to her, as she started it in Sudan, planting fruit trees and fending off hunger amidst a raging war, as there was hardly enough to eat.
“What drove me to plant trees was the hunger caused by war. There was no food. The trees provided fruits, which I sold at the market. Here in Kenya, I started planting trees in 2022,” said Nema.
Refugee learners like 25-year-old Augustino Kuot Bol, a South Sudanese national, said they want peace to plant trees.
A Form 3 learner at Blue State secondary school, Augustino has planted 20 trees at the Kenyan school since arriving in 2022.
“We want peace in the world. Without peace, we cannot have time to plant trees,” Augustino said.
IPS UN Bureau Report
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