The adopt a tree and tag a virtue initiative is not only helping in nurturing good character among the students in Primary and Secondary schools but also becoming a great education innovation towards achieving sustainable development goals. The ‘Adopt a tree and tag a virtue initiative’ is a service-learning best practice which is implemented by involving the students to plant, adopt and tag the trees with positive virtues which they aim to nurture in their life as the tree grows. The trees include both the indigenous and fruit trees. The students take on the responsibility of caring for their tree and the development of their chosen virtue as a “personal project’ under the guidance of a teacher or staff mentor.

A case study example is in Mutira Girls High School where the School Servant Leadership Team (SLT) has collaborated with the school principal to establish a green garden for fruit trees. The SLT received a 4 days training on “Cultivating virtues in Kenyan school leaders (CVIL)“ which was organized by the Centre for Character and Leadership (CCL) in partnership with the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development and CViL developers from the Center for Character and Citizenship, University of Missouri-St.Louis. The CViL program seeks to guide educators on a personal and professional development journey. A journey of self-discovery and a deep understanding of servant leadership virtues, character education, and skills necessary to lead school transformation,

With the guidance of the SLT, every class teacher engage their students in interactive discussions with an aim of identifying a virtue which they would like to inculcate and model as a class. The class teacher together with the students’ representatives from each class participate in the launch of the green garden for fruit trees. Each class is then tasked to take care of its fruit tree as they encourage each other to nurture and model the virtue. The virtues tagged on the trees include stewardship by CCL, empathy by Form 1W, respect by Form 1U, considerate by Form 2V, forgiveness by Form 3X and generosity by Form 4W among others.  Currently, the trees are doing well and have started to bear the fruits. In addition, the SLT has reported that as a result of virtue development, “students in the school have become more hospitable, responsible and more determined.”

One of the favorite stories of character transformation from the school include students sacrificing their pocket money in order to raise funds to pay school fees of a needy girl. A form two class prefect mobilized her class, teachers and the whole school to raise money for a student who had been away from school due to illness for three months. A total of sixty-four thousand Kenya shillings was collected to finance the medical bill. This was indeed a kind gesture that showed selflessness and love, reported by the SLT.

Other schools which have embraced the adopt a tree and tag a virtue initiative includes Ruai Boys Secondary School, Drumvale Secondary School, Buruburu Girls Secondary School, Kiamutugu Boys’ Secondary School, Ole Tipis Girls’ Secondary School, Kirimari Boys Secondary School and ACK Mukengesya Secondary School. The aforementioned schools received an in-kind donation of indigenous trees from the East African Cables in collaboration with CCL. A total of over 4300 trees have been planted through the adopt a tree and tag a virtue initiative in year 2022 with a goal of planting 12000 trees in 2023. These concerted efforts go along way not only on fostering students character development through service learning but also in realizing sustainable development goals such as food security and climate action.