Tree Adoption Uganda (TAU)

Tree Adoption Uganda, Uganda

The organisation

Tree Adoption Uganda (TAU) was established in 2012 and officially registered on November 8, 2013, as a youth-centric NGO. It operates as a nonprofit with a mission to cultivate thriving communities where both people and nature flourish. TAU’s approach integrates landscape restoration practices such as tree planting and agroforestry to bolster resilience among smallholder farmers facing climate variability. Concurrently, TAU’s mission is to tackle youth unemployment and environmental degradation by providing education and training in establishing and managing indigenous tree nurseries and farms. TAU stands as a youth-led social enterprise dedicated to confronting the intertwined challenges of unemployment and climate change.

Founder Charles Batte is a social entrepreneur from Kamwokya; one of the most impoverished slums in Uganda. Growing up in an environment characterized by a lack of opportunity, poverty, crime, drugs, and poor health, he harnessed a spirit of social responsibility and a desire to give back to his community.

TAU has worked with 1,000 individual households on Sustainable land Management approaches and planted over 450,000 trees through collaborative agroforestry with communities in Mpigi, Nakaseke, Kayunga, Bududa, Mukono, Ngora, Serere, Soroti, Luwero, Kayunga and Kumi, and 350,000 of these trees have been mapped by GPS coordinates using innovative tree tracking effort. In addition, TAU has trained more than 2,500 young people on variable aspects of environmental conservation, ranging from setting up tree nurseries, grafting, pruning, propagation, human and nature interactions.