Offshoot of Wichita’s Trees for Life to help educate world’s poor (+video)

Trees for Life is about to branch off in a new direction.

The 30-year-old Wichita-based grassroots nonprofit organization that has helped the poorest of the poor throughout the world in planting more than 200 million Moringa trees since the mid-1980s is now set to begin educating those people.

Trees for Life is expected to launch “Teach for Life” at the end of this year. The premise is to provide teachers who have limited training with basic video lessons through the Internet. At first, there will be 150 lessons for teachers of children ranging in age from 4 to 6 years. Trees for Life is partnering with USD 259, Wichita State University, Wichita Collegiate, Friends University and McPherson College in creating the videos.

“I’ve watched this group evolve over the last 10 to 15 years,” said Al Higdon, co-founder of a Wichita advertising agency who has worked with Trees for Life. “I’ve watched them put this together with tenacity, smarts and patience, one step at a time. We’ve waited for technology to catch up with them. But now, with the availability of hand-held devices, this is what was needed to bridge the gap between ignorance and an educational higher quality of life.”

Like trees, the educational concept will grow, said Simmi Dalla, who is slated to become Trees for Life’s new chief executive officer when its founder, Balbir Mathur, retires at the end of the year.

“I think it is a revolutionary approach,” Dalla said. “When we are going to be done, it is going to be a movement. The model is complete and will continue to change and evolve. My biggest hope is that someone will be able to use this platform, whether it is a teacher in a small village in South Africa, Kenya or Africa. Somebody can pick up a tablet and be able to see lessons and learn from it.”

The idea began more two decades ago with Mathur.

“When we began Trees for Life, we decided if we were to wipe out poverty, people have to do it themselves,” Mathur said. “For the past 20 years, we have been finding out ways on how we can take the extraordinary teachers of the world and share their knowledge and skills with people to teach the poorest of the poor. The major problem with people getting education in some areas of the world is that there wasn’t the trained teachers.”

Much of the work happens at Trees for Life’s headquarters in Wichita at 3006 W. St. Louis. The video lessons are short – two to three minutes with animation. With the technology of today’s computers – some hand-held tablets can be purchased for as little as $50 – and the Internet, the lessons can be translated into any language.

Trees for Life started with planting the Moringa trees, whose leaves provide seven times the amount of vitamin C that oranges do, four times the amount of vitamin A compared with carrots and four times as much calcium as milk.

The value of the Moringa tree is, in part, its ability to thrive in dry conditions. Every part of the tree is edible. The leaves have medicinal uses, and the seeds can be used to purify water.

The next step, Mathur said, was education.

He uses an analogy of electricity – of how much electricity is generated at Niagara Falls.

“If we are creating a million kilowatts of energy but cannot light up a light bulb in Ethiopia, it is wasted,” Balbur said. “So we said, ‘That is our task.’ What type of system has to be created so it can light up a 40-watt light bulb in Ethiopia? It became our challenge. It has taken us 15 years to solve. It was like peeling an onion; we peeled one and then we cried. And then a new layer cropped up. We have a highly dedicated core of people who have stuck with it.”

The goal, Mathur said, is to provide education around the world.

“It is done not by giving but empowering,” he said. “Most people look at the fruits and ask how many trees do we need to solve it. We are looking into the roots and saying what seeds have to be planted in order to grow. We have to fight poverty. Where is the source? The source is education.”

Along the way, Mathur made friends with David Packard, co-founder of Hewlett-Packard; staff members at the Library of Congress; and others.

The platform, Dalla said, can be used not just in education curriculum but also in other presentations, such as how to prevent malaria.

The concept, she said, has the potential to change the world.

Other staff members at Trees for Life agree.

“What is so exciting about this project is that it is set up in a way that individuals, communities and groups can come together and do their part for something else,” said Scott Garvey, a longtime staff member. “They can see the model and adapt it for what they want. It evolves and changes in ways we may never know.

“You plant the seeds, and this is where it goes. It’s what people will do far beyond us that excites me.”

This story was originally published October 25, 2015 at 7:49 PM with the headline "Offshoot of Wichita’s Trees for Life to help educate world’s poor (+video)."