Episode 8 – Innovation from the Global South

Let us plant trees and educate young people in Africa! Social innovation and change in Uganda.

In this podcast episode number 8, Almas speaks with Dr. Charles Batte, the founder of Tree Adoption Uganda (TAU) – a youth-centric NGO powered by the vision of creating communities where people and nature flourish.

Innovation from the Global South – Hosted by Dr. Almas Taj Awan is part of the #FutureFramed.TV. The collective podcast platform of Traces&Dreams.

Dr. Charles Batte was born in Kamwokya; one of the most impoverished slums in Uganda. He
grew up in an environment characterized by lack of opportunity, poverty, crime, drugs and poor
health service delivery. This early experience inculcated in him a spirit of social responsibility
and a desire to create positive social impact that has been responsible for his work towards
sustainable development.

In 2013, he founded Tree Adoption Uganda (TAU) – a youth-centric NGO powered by the
vision of creating communities where people and nature flourish. TAU’s work is focused on 3 thematic areas:

1. Educate: TAU delivers action-oriented (practical) environmental education to young people focused on activities that change attitudes and impart skills for participation and collaboration in identifying, predicting, preventing and solving environmental problems and climate change. To date students from 50 schools across the country have benefited from this training and 1,500 young people have participated in practical hands-on training on variable aspects of environmental conservation including setting up tree nurseries, grafting, pruning, propagation and monitoring.

2. Empower: TAU builds community climate resilience through agroforestry with small holder farmers in Uganda’s rural communities and waste management for flood control training in urban slums. To date TAU, has trained and worked with 876 rural households in Mpigi and Nakaseke on Sustainable land Management approaches, and trained 1,000 urban households on waste management for flood control in Bwaise.

3. Engage: TAU engages individuals and companies globally in landscapes restoration by promoting and advancing technology for transparent tree planting. Through its Adopt a tree initiative, individuals can adopt, obtain data, remotely monitor their adopted trees.
To date, 150,000 trees have been adopted and 50,000 mapped by GPS coordinates.
For his work, he won the Your big Year 2012 World Merit Global Ambassador for Social Entrepreneurship award traveling to 17 countries on 5 continents to inspire and work with youths, 2013 he was named Global Laureate Fellow by the International Youth Foundation.
In 2014 he was a finalist in the HRH the Prince of Wales award for sustainable living entrepreneurs. In 2015 he was named Dalai Lama Fellow for social entrepreneurs, winner at the US Department of Sate – Global Innovation through Science and technology (GIST) competition at the Global Entrepreneurship Summit – Nairobi organized and attended by President Obama of the USA, winner of the United Nation’s Framework on Climate change Conference (UNFCC)Youth video Award and the Common Wealth Youth Bright Ideas competition. In 2016, he was named an Aspen Institute emerging non-profit leaders’ fellow, in 2017 he won the World Global Energy Award and was a Regional Winner for the Commonwealth youth workers award. In 2018, he was a winner in the National ICT Initiative Support program (NIISP) and was twice awarded a Fogarty Global Health Fellowship award
supported by the US National Institute of Health for 2019 and 2020.