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Tree Planting on World Environment Day

June 6th 2026

On June 6th, we participated in the World Environment Day celebrations with Plants for Life International and the Miti Alliance Kenya and others, to plant a total of 400 biodiverse Indigenous trees in 2 hours. The Rain Starts With Us team of 4 proudly planted 72 of those. We were also invited to screen the film by our host, ecologist Mark Nicholson who praised the film. Mark has been collecting East African plants for 30 years and now grows over 600 tree and shrub species. He’s a passionate forest restorer still actively removing invasive species to replace them with indigenous trees like Kenyan Croton and African Cherry tree among others. Here is the wonderful team with 2 of our banners amongst them.

Kakamega Tropical Rainforest, a last remnant of the ancient forests of the Congo basin that once dominated Africa’s equatorial centre. Kakamega has rich species diversity, and we are told is home to endangered African grey parrots and Kenya’s only rainforest Braaza monkeys. It is a very important 4,000+ha, gazetted as a National Park in 1986 but constantly threatened by deforestation.

Exotic Guava trees have not just thrived, but threaten indigenous tree types

The local people are welcome to help harvest guava wood from Kakamega and it is used a lot for fencing and firewood. Beautiful as the trees and their pink-fleshed fruit and smooth bark may be, their hard wood is both heavy to carry and tough to chop. They re-sprout easily and monkeys and birds spread their abundant seeds. We planted replacement indigenous trees in a guava cleared glade which had been left rather sparse.

It was wonderful to be part of this important restoration work and it inspired us to work harder to return to Uganda for our impact programme as soon as we can. (Hopefully October).

Donations towards this are welcome Thank you.

The UK Premiere of The Rwenzori Rainmakers

Saturday 11^th April 2026

We can’t tell you how chuffed we were with Saturday’s turnout for the UK premiere of The Rwenzori Rainmakers.

All three parts of the documentary screened across the afternoon and early evening at the beautifully intimate Ultimate Picture Palace in Oxford — a Grade II listed, community-owned independent cinema, and one of the oldest purpose-built cinemas in the UK.

And we very nearly filled it!

With a short break between screenings, the audience stayed completely engaged throughout, even joining in the Q&A with Zuleika (the Director and Editor of the films) and Praveen Moman, a visionary conservationist, winner of Newsweek Future of Travel Awards 2021 and Founder of Volcanoes Safaris. Praveen is one of our very generous sponsors and partner going forward.

One attendee, Sheila, shared: ”Oh what a film, what a marvellous film. My goodness…was it the intimate space? Was it the slower pace of the film? Was it the simple language of the local people telling their story in their way, instead of a celebrity presenter giving you high impact summaries and graphics? The photography was terrific – the images of the birds and their vibrant colours really draws in the fascination of that part of Africa. It feels like a beautiful important conservation tale that should rally so many people to build on the information you showed. I do hope you find a promotional pathway that gives legacy to your film.”

Another attendee, Frances, wrote:

“Wow just wow. Congratulations on an amazing event. Here are my thoughts: Beautifully sensitive, immersive and exquisite cinematography and editing. Bravo, you are a master filmmaker and it was a privilege to watch your three films. Shout out to the composer too for a beautiful score, perfectly edited by you to fit the right moments in the films. Overall I found the films to be deeply impactful, inspiring and moving. In fact I was so immersed in the community, the projects and the landscape that I didn’t want to leave. Amazing skill and such important work, you should be incredibly proud. I hope you will be able to stream them so that I can recommend many others to watch.”

Tree Planting on World Environment Day

The UK Premiere of The Rwenzori Rainmakers

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