Bishop Andaku Launches Environmental Week, Calls For Coexistence With Nature

ARUA. Rt. Rev. Charles Collins Andaku, the Bishop of Madi and West Nile Diocese, has officially launched this year’s environmental week with a call for people to live in harmony with nature.

The environmental week is an annual activity that started shortly after Bishop Andaku’s installation in 2017. This year’s event will run from March 9-15, 2025.

The event will climax on March 16, 2025 with a Tree Sunday where preaching and sensitization in all the churches across the diocese will be based on the environment.

The 2025 Tree Sunday will be celebrated at St. Peter’s Church of Uganda Zonzi in Wolo Parish, Aringa Archdeaconry.

Speaking during the environmental week launch at the diocesan headquarters in Mvara on Tuesday February 18, 2025, Bishop Andaku said as a diocese, their slogan this year is: “Harmony with nature.”

“Why we embrace environmental month and environmental week and also the tree Sunday is to reflect on our actions as individuals, as households and churches and institutions about our environment and to remind us of our God-given mandate in Genesis to take care of our environment,” Andaku said.

“To also rally us to correct our actions which negatively contribute to environmental worries. Sad to note; the Kaveera (polythene bag) business in Uganda, in West Nile is so disturbing! All over, we are destroying our environment. When you go to Kenya, before you cross the border, they check for Kaveeras and if you come with a Kaveera, they leave it at the Ugandan border and in Rwanda it is the same case even at the Airport. So, Ugandans, we are saying we need to keep our environment very healthy,” Andaku appealed.

Andaku stressed that by marking the environmental week, the diocese equally intends to promote tree growing to enhance livelihood for food, income, security and protection.

“Even for our health, for our environment, the soil fertility and reservation of water sources and boundary marking. Now it is my pleasure with the authority vested upon me to officially launch March 2025 up to September 2025 as the environmental months for the diocese and province of the Church of Uganda, the diocesan targeted environmental week and lastly, the Tree Sunday on March 16, 2025,” Andaku remarked.

The bishop later crowned the launch with a symbolic planting of trees together with the clergy and the media team at the diocesan headquarters.

Jesca Munguleni, the head of the diocesan department of household and community transformation, noted that the issue of the environment and greening of the diocese emerged from the findings by the UN Assembly that climate change is a concern.

She said as a diocese; they are key stakeholders in addressing issues of climate change and that it is their God-given mandate as a diocese to care for the environment.

“When our Bishop was enthroned, one of the key areas on his agenda was the issue of greening the diocese. And so, the overall goal of the diocesan environmental strategy is the improvement of people’s livelihoods as a means of alleviating poverty while restoring the environment in response to some of the environmental challenges which include the abuse and defilement of creation which is visible by everybody. This has led to floods, pollution, changes in rain pattern, poor soil fertility, the destructive winds, low water tables and hunger among others,” Munguleni explained.  

Munguleni observed that in the 2024 census, West Nile was found to be the second poorest after Karamoja region, adding that some of the factors triggering the poverty emerged from the way people have failed to manage the environment.

A number of activities like tree planting, cleaning, removing polythene bags and bottles from the environment and sensitization of the communities on the need to conserve the environment among others are set to be undertaken in the different Archdeaconries during the environmental week.