Rotary club in fight against climate change

Sibindi Van Dam (R)-planting a tree together with learners and a Rotarian at Shire Urban Primary School in Lilongwe-pic by Moses Nyirenda

MALAWI: Rotary Club of Lilongwe-Lingadzi President, Eveline Sibindi Van Dam, said her club is committed to adopting various programs such as conducting tree planting exercises among other things that would help to fight against climate change in the country.

In an interview, Sibindi Van Dam said as a club they are concerned with the problems which are happening in the country because of climate change; hence they decided to help in combating the challenge.

“We are concerned to see Malawi facing serious challenges such as unpredictable rainfall pattern and floods due to climate change which is mostly being caused by deforestation, 

“As a club, environmental management is one of our key focus areas, for this reason, we decided to join the government and other stakeholders in coming up with measures such as planting more trees to address the issue of climate change in the country,” Sibindi Van Dam said.

She added that in this year’s tree planting season they have managed to plant about 27, 000 trees in different areas in the country including in Lilongwe and Zomba.

Recently, the club together with its partner known as Open Spaces Inc donated over 2000 trees at Shire Urban Primary School and during the donation, they planted about 200 fruit and native trees at the school.

According to, Sibindi Van Dam they are working together with partners in their work of restoring the environment in the country.

“We have a club with energetic and passionate Rotarians who work very hard to make a difference.

“On top of that we have a quite few implementing partners which give us support, for instance among the trees which we donated at Shire Urban Primary School, 1500 trees were given by the Ganatra and Lakhani families from Lilongwe,” she said.

She also said that they are also working jointly with Lilongwe City Council (LCC) in the development of the Lilongwe Ecological Corridor Initiative and also in a campaign called ‘Greening Lilongwe Campaign’ which seeks to cover up Lilongwe city with trees among other types of vegetation.

In his remarks, one of the country’s environmental activists, Mathews Malata, hailed Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) including clubs like the Rotary Club of Lilongwe-Lingadzi for their gesture in helping the government to deal with the issue of climate change in the country.

“Government alone cannot manage to deal with the challenge of climate change, therefore I would like to appreciate the NGOs and clubs that are taking part in the fight against climate change in the country,” Malata said.