Nachitukula Primary School

Tackling flooding by saving forests

Nachitukula Primary School, a primary school in Phalombe, Malawi is, like other schools in the district, constantly besieged by floods. The flooding sweeps into the classrooms and offices, leaving nothing but destruction in its wake. But the school quickly realised that reforesting was the answer to its problems.

The district of Phalombe has experienced massive deforestation, which has led to floods in this low-lying region that have damaged the school building and cancelled lessons.

The school has launched an initiative to plant 60 million trees on 4,000 hectares of land in the district to combat deforestation. The school expects this to tackle flooding by reducing soil compaction, thereby enabling ground water to penetrate, decreasing surface runoff and sediment migration.

If Nachitukula Primary School were to win the World’s Best School Prize for Environmental Action it would use the funds to expand its ‘Climate Action and Sixty Million Tree Planting Activity’ initiative to cover the southern region of Malawi and establish tree nurseries in schools across the region.