Mt Hagen youths take up tree planting

 A TREE planting project in Mt Hagen aims to help youths do something useful for their communities.

The project by the Kei Doa City Rangers  with the support of SPARKS International and the Western Highlands village development aims to plant one million trees in the province.

The plan is to educate youths and those addicted to drugs, criminal activities and homebrew on how to plant trees.

SPARKS International supplied the youths with one million trees to plant and later sell to earn an income.

On Friday at Moika in Mt Hagen, 3050 trees were given to the members of the Moika Tree Planting Association. Sixty-one members of the association attended a two-week training on tree planting.

Rangers programme manager and SPARKS International representative Willie Gabriel said it was good partnership with the Western Highlands village development to help people.

He said the tree planting programme was to help address the greenhouse effect and climate change.

Chairman of Western Highlands village development John Yama said the trainings would help youths.

Yama said they would deliver trees to two  locations in Muglamp and Mt Hagen this week.