Every < year Greenpop, a Cape Town-based tree-planting and eco-education organisation, hosts a three-week tree-planting and sustainability education Festival of Action in Livingstone, Zambia, that offers participants the chance to secure a discounted or free ticket to the event by raising funds for trees. This year, 63 Trees for Fees activists have so far raised funds for more than 1700 trees. Many are also going to extraordinary lengths for their campaigns: Jason Ruger is cycling 3000km from Cape Town to Zambia to raise awareness, while others have started YouTube channels and blogs, and hosted green events. Not only will Greenpop use the funds to plant trees across Southern Africa, but for every tree raised activists will also get a discount on their Zambia Festival of Action 2016 fees. Those who raise enough trees can even attend the programme for free, while Greenpop is also offering prizes and incentives for the activist who raises the most trees, and the activist who surpasses their original target by the largest amount. What is the Greenpop Zambia Festival of Action?
In June-July, Greenpop holds a three-week long festival of action near the mighty Victoria Falls. Hundreds of people from all over the world come together to plant trees, learn about sustainability, share knowledge and have lots of fun. It’s an epic adventure, filled with great people, interesting stories and huge hearts. This is a festival with a difference – it’s an action based, conference-style, voluntourism project that includes camping in the beautiful Greenpop village, meeting like-minded people from around the globe, helping to plant a few thousand trees, growing a food forest, learning about permaculture, attending workshops on alternative energy and eco-enterprises, live music evenings, film evenings, giving back, learning, and celebrating our planet.

Why Zambia?
Greenpop co-founders Lauren O’Donnell and Misha Teasdale received a phone call in 2010 about 15,000 baby trees sitting in Zambia with no one to plant them. Those saplings, and the man who propagated them, are what took Greenpop to Zambia to explore the possibilities of running a community project there.

They discovered a country heavily affected by both deforestation and climate change, making it a relevant space for environmental action, and with such a friendly and welcoming culture, an abundance of inspiring individuals, and a wealth of expertise, Zambia is the perfect location to create a platform for exchange.

“The Zambia Festival of Action has become such a big part of our lives at Greenpop,” says Lauren, “It feels very powerful to bring so many like-minded, inspired people together with a common goal of planting trees and sharing knowledge on the state of our environment and solutions on how we can contribute to conserving our planet. The magic comes from these interactions.”

About Greenpop:
Greenpop is an award-winning social enterprise on a mission to (re)connect people with our planet. They plant trees through urban greening and reforestation projects, spread environmental awareness, and activate people through green festivals and workshops. Greenpop was founded in 2010 and has since planted over 57,000 trees at schools and other urban sites as well as forests and farms across South Africa, Zambia, and Tanzania.

More information:
Find out more about Trees for Fees: http://bit.ly/Trees4Fees
Learn more about the Festival of Action: http://bit.ly/GPopZam
Join the Festival of Action 2016 event page: bit.ly/zam16FB
Check out the current activist projects: http://bit.ly/206uDBN
Website – www.greenpop.org
Facebook – www.facebook.com/GreenpopTreevolution
Twitter – @GreenpopSA
Instagram – @GreenpopSA
Youtube – www.youtube.com/user/GreenpopTreevolution