1st Edition of Making UoE Green

The Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Thomas Cheruiyot led the UoE community in marking the Green Holiday (National Tree Planting Day) held on Monday, November 13, 2023, next to Gate “C” where 1,000 trees were planted as part of the University’s walk to plant 36,000 trees by June 30th, 2024.  The Environmental Sustainability Committee under the leadership of the Chair Dr. Munyao and Mrs. Jane Kiragu organised the event.

In his address to the UoE colleagues, Prof. Cheruiyot mentioned that the UoE community has a target of planting at least 100,000 trees within the next 5 years and each member of staff will plant 30 trees by the end of June 2024. This will align with the Government’s target of having 15 billion trees planted by the year 2032.  Currently, as a team, UoE is behind schedule, and with this, there will be a continued session of tree planting with a target of planting 5,500 trees by the end of November 2023.

The vision is for each colleague to plant, adopt, and watch their trees grow as they tend to them. This will be part of the first chapter of making the University of Eldoret “Go Green” like other international Universities in the world. Prof. Cheruiyot said that it's not just green for the sake of planting trees but sustainability in all activities done within the University. A Green Policy will be drawn up that will cover activities within the University including water being recycled, the use of solar, reduction of wastage - using natural light instead of lighting up with electricity. “The key issue is conservation, when as a community we conserve what we have then we can sustain the processes and activities within the University”, said Prof. Cheruiyot. 

Present were Prof. Wilson Ng’etich - Deputy Vice-Chancellor (AF), Prof. Philip Raburu - DVC (PRE), Prof. Beatrice Were - Ag. DVC (ASA), Prof. Paul Tarus - Registrar Academic, Mr. Stephen Anditi - Senior Legal Officer, Deans, Directors,  and members of the Academic and Administrative staff.

We are grateful for the 4,000 trees provided by Equity Bank for this activity.