Clare GAA players on course to help plant a million trees

THREE of Clare’s best known players recently returned from a historic trip to Africa, where they kick started a bid to plant more than a million trees to combat climate change.

Clare players Podge Collins, Dean Ryan, and Eimear Kelly joined 50 leading GAA stars to compete in the first ever ‘Plant the Planet Games’ in Nairobi, Kenya, on a visit that also saw them plant the first thousand trees in a GPA-backed tree planting effort to tackle climate change in Africa.

Each of the participating players, who included inter-county hurlers, footballers and camogie players from 23 different counties, were tasked with raising €10,000 in sponsorship to support the effort.  The group’s collective total has already topped half a million euro, with funds still coming in.

The initiative was organised by Galway dual player Alan Kerins Warriors for Humanity in conjunction with development charity Self Help Africa, and is also being supported by Kenyan Olympic medalist and world record holding runner, David Rudisha.

In a social media post, Eimear Kelly said, “Such an incredibly humbling week, getting to know the friendliest, most grateful & heart warming people in the world – the amazing Kenyans.

Thank you so much for the incredible support on this project, I can’t express how much value each and every donation has on these people, families & communities. It is a legacy left in Kenya that we will never truly understand the impact of”.

Business Development Director at Self Help Africa, Martha Hourican, said that the trip had exceeded all expectations, and that the support provided by the Gaelic players would have a transformational effect for communities in Kenya hard hit by the effects of climate change.

‘Regions of Kenya have endured four successive years of drought, upwards of two million livestock have been lost this year alone, and crops have failed.

“This trip responds to that crisis in a practical way, while also highlighting for people back home here in Ireland very real effects of climate change being felt by poor and vulnerable communities in Africa,” she said.

Amongst the participants in the inaugural ‘Plant the Planet Games’ were Limerick Hurler Sean Finn, Wexford’s Matthew O’Hanlon, Kerry’s Stefan Okunbor, Clare’s Podge Collins, Kilkenny’s Grace Walsh, and Niamh O’Sullivan from Meath.

The players took to the field for a series of exhibition games at Nairobi Rugby Club, before visiting projects being implemented by Self Help Africa in Kenya, and planting trees at Baringo in the country’s drought affected Rift Valley.

To find out more about Self Help Africa’s efforts to plant millions of trees in Africa visit: www.selfhelpafrica.org