Vision City Kigali, a green city housing project, has partnered with Rwanda Environment Management Authority (REMA) to support "Rwanda’s Little Hands Go Green,” campaign across the country.

The new environment conservation campaign is designed to educate children to take part in mass tree planting exercise in Kigali and beyond.

It is the first time the project is being undertaken in Kigali.

Dubbed "Rwanda’s Little Hands Go Green,” the initiative, an offshoot of ‘Uganda’s Little Hands Go Green’ campaign, was on Saturday embraced by Vision City housing estate and more than 500 school children, who planted at least 300 horticultural trees around the city.

The initiative, according to Liliane Mupende, the chief executive of Ultimate Developers Ltd (UDL), the developer of Vision City, seeks to put children at the forefront of tree-planting and climate change efforts to help conserve the environment.

"The idea is to educate children on the dangers of destroying the environment through irresponsible cutting of trees without replacing them which has far reaching consequences on our environment,” Mupende told The New Times, adding that it’s the children who bear most the consequences when environment is destroyed.

The Little Hands Go Green campaign will work with children under 13 years, teaching them the benefits of a healthy planet within and outside Rwanda.

With about five million children in Rwanda, the Director-General of REMA, Eng. Coletha Ruhamya, said the Little Hands Go Green campaign is a great milestone toward conserving the country’s environment and promoting green growth.

It means if each child started planting a tree every year today, 20 years from now they will have planted more than 100 million trees, which would play a great role in protecting and sustaining the environment, she noted.

About Vision City Kigali

The mega project in Gaculiro, Kinyinya Sector in Gasabo District is expected to deliver to the market 504 housing units in phase one, but will have a total of 4,500 units, including luxury villas and apartments on completion.

The UDL investment is a creation of futuristic neighbourhoods that cater for all the modern needs of home buyers. It is a spiced up assortment of modern premium housing typologies, including stand-alone luxury villas, semi-detached villas, town houses and modern apartments.

The project is being financed by RSSB and will be implemented in four phases over a period of eight years, says Mupende.

Officials say the Vision City project will have the capacity to accommodate over 22,000 people.

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