The project goes back to the friendship of Dr. Richard Tarimo – our Barabara – with our company economist DI Bernhard Wagenknecht.
They met each other in the church choir of the Marienpfarre in Vienna-Hernals. After the completion of the study of morality, Barabara returned to Kenya in 2002 and went back to the Maassai as a priest. On a visit to Vienna, Barabara showed pictures of his parish of Ololkirikirai. These photographs suggested that Mr. Wagenknecht urged Barabara to take afforestation measures and began to support him.
In October 2009, Barabara gave a lecture at the HBLFA for Horticulture on his work and his parish. He also presented the reforestation project, which Mr. Wagenknecht had now developed in rough strokes. The students at the time were doing this and wanted to participate in it.
In project management lessons, the project was further developed and money was collected. The procurement of the Children’s Book Planting the Trees of Kenya turned out to be much more difficult than expected. In his search for help, Mr. Wagenknecht came across the schoolbook Growing Trees and Gardens for Life.
In August 2010 the first book delivery arrived in Oolkirikirai.
In the meantime, Millicent had set up the vegetable garden and a nursery school in the parish station, and had begun the first tree nurseries. With the start of school in September, our first partnership, the Olorupa Primary School, started with a tree planting project. The renaming of “Project Barabara” in “Books for Trees” took place in 2011 for marketing reasons. The Maturajahrgang 2011/12 had decided to develop a marketing strategy for the project in marketing and management lessons.