Yellow pages translate to thousands of trees

During the month of June, Trudon (Publishers of the Yellow Pages) is distributing 1 500 trees to the fortunate residents of Braamfischerville, Gauteng, as part of an ongoing effort to green townships. In conjunction with South Africa’s premier social greening social enterprise, Food & Trees for Africa, Trudon has generously sponsored 10 000 trees for distribution in low cost housing settlements across South Africa as part of their ongoing commitment to social upliftment and poverty alleviation.

‘As Trudon is in the production of printed directories, we as a company need to contribute to preserving our environment by planting trees. Trudon prints 7 million books per annum and we believe by partnering with Food & Trees for Africa we minimise our impact on the environment by planting the 10 000 trees in low cost housing settlements across SA,’ says Trudon’s Corporate Social Investment Manager, Clarissa Smith.

Braamfischerville was originally developed in 2001 to house families relocated from in the Alexandra Township Renewal Programme to this north-western part of Soweto. It has grown further as a result of people relocating from Soweto and other parts of southern Johannesburg due to the development of new Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) housing. Unfortunately no greening took place and the area is desolate and barren.

Trained to spread awareness

These Trudon trees will be planted by residents in their yards through the Trees for Homes Program, a successful urban greening programme. In the process 30 unemployed residents of this settlement will be trained as community educators to spread environmental and climate change awareness, support the correct planting and good maintenance of these trees and report back to Trudon on the growth of their green gift.

‘These trees are an excellent way to introduce complex issues like global warming,’ said Trees for Homes manager Joanne Lee Rolt. ‘This Trudon project is timely in the lead up to the United Nations COP17 meeting that will take place in Durban in a few months time when world leaders will get together to try to reach agreement on how to respond to this serious issue that threatens the well being of us all.’