Aftonbladet 160215
By: BRITT PERUZZI
Helen Sjöholm travelled to Rwanda to fight deforestation
Trees save lives!
Artist Helen Sjöholm is filled with hope after a journey to drought-stricken Rwanda.
– Planting trees can ultimately mean that a child gets a lamp to read the homework by in the evening, says the aid organization Vi-forest ambassador.
A week ago singer Helen Sjöholm travelled to Rwanda to meet school children and their families in a school project that since ten years focuses on tree planting. Rwanda, together with Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya is one of the countries hit hard by the deforestation that had devastating effects.
– This was so incredibly intense. I’ve gotten so many new impressions and seen so much good. But it’s also hard to imagine these people’s difficult conditions.
The Rwanda journey is the first the singer does since she a year ago became ambassador for the Swedish aid organization. The goal of the campaign is to raise money to start 500 ”tree clubs” in schools over the next two years, and to train 10 000 children in that trees can protect against drought, soil erosion and torrential rain.
– It’s these children growing up now who will have to take the big fight with what the climate changes will bring.
Fixed his own kitchen garden
In schoolyards children and adults are taught to build their own kitchen gardens. The plants then become trees at home on the families farms and the fruit and vegetables become important energy supplements for children who often get only one meal a day.
– We visited a boy, 12 years old, who was a member of an environmental club, and with his knowledge had planted a small vegetable garden on his farm. He brought his knowledge home and made something tangible from it.
Helen Sjöholm also met adults whose lives have changed since they became aware of the positive impact of planting.
– A man told me that his marriage had suddenly become more stable, there was a more egalitarian sense, and his wife was glad to see a community that gave something good at home. It’s incredible what trees can result in. Grown in the right way, with the right crop, it becomes a circle that actually gives food on the table and better opportunity.
Helen Sjöholm is, with seven Grammy and two Gold Masks in her merits, one of the country’s most beloved singers. After work she is a mother of three who try to practise what she preaches.
– I’m not better than others. With three kids it becomes a lot of rotation on stuff, clothes, and we try to go for ”Blocket” and to reuse as much as possible.
The contrast with the circumstances she met on the journey is absolute.
– I met people who have – nothing. Nothing. Not even a chair, the artist says, who received an Ambassador inquiry at the same time as Babben Larsson and Anders Lundin.
Planning a concert
– Contributing to the Vi-Forest project the result is really so hopeful and concrete. My goal by talking about Rwanda is that more people will become monthly donors and later this year, the plan is to do a concert for the climate project.
Sjöholm says that it costs 1700 SEK to start a new tree club for 20 students and run it for one year. If a Swedish school class goes together, it will be SEK 68 per child and year.
A new report from the UN Children’s Fund shows that climate change affects children particularly hard. Today, 160 million children live in areas, most in Africa, at risk of severe drought.