About Us

International Cooperation of Children for Trees for Life Canada Inc. (TFL CANADA) is a provincially and federally registered non-profit, charitable organization dedicated to promoting and providing resources for early age environmental education. Established in 1991, TFL Canada developed a highly acclaimed environmental education program for elementary school children called the "Grow-a-Tree" program and began distributing the program to Canadian schools. Each "Grow-a-Tree" kit provides children with the resources required to grow their own tree from seed while learning basic concepts in science and ecology. The small team of volunteers who founded the organization dreamed that one day their program would be running in schools around the world.

The program came into existence through the efforts of Radha Zaidi, our founder and president, as a reaction to her concern for both children's education and the world's deteriorating environmental conditions. Since this time, the organization has grown exponentially in size and is currently run effectively by a small core group and many faithful volunteers.

TFL Canada has prepared the "Grow-A-Tree" project which includes: educational materials, tree seeds and biodegradable growing cartons as well as care instructions for the developing trees.

The kits are offered to schools for use with Kindergarten to Grade Six students.

The program has been steadily growing since its inception. In the first year, there were 3,000 participants and now, to date, over hundreds of thousands of children across Canada receive and thoroughly enjoy the unique, hands-on experience of the "Grow-A-Tree" project.

The program has been so successful, that we have literally "branched out" to other countries. TFL Canada started a partnership with interested parties in China, who formed an organization aptly called Trees for Life China. The results thus far are very encouraging, since thousands of children are reached annually. TFL China is presently self-sustaining, having established solid roots in various Chinese provinces. In 1996, Trees for Life Chile was formed. Future plans include the initiation of partnerships with additional countries from around the world. Since environmental issues, such as deforestation, transcend political borders, we feel getting children participating in the program worldwide is an excellent way to start tackling these enormous and interconnected problems.

A natural development that followed TFL's establishment of international partners was that participants from various countries would attempt to interact together in a way that would foster the most effective educational program possible for children around the world. The most recent addition is the "Classroom Exchange Program", which involves the development of pen-pal relationships between children among participating countries. TFL also offers a "Volunteer Training Program", where a volunteer from a country other than Canada is trained at our main office to become a leader of a TFL partnership organization in his or her country.

TOGETHER, we can plant the seeds for a greener tomorrow!!