Fruit trees for Bidibidi: restoring childhood and peace

TAO Africa was born from lived experiences of displacement, resilience, and the belief that restoring the environment can also restore dignity, peace, and community life. Growing up in South Sudan, fruit trees were part of everyday life. As children, we did not think deeply about how valuable they were because they existed everywhere around us. We could walk along the roadside and pick mangoes with friends. We could pass through a neighbor’s compound and find guavas, avocados, tamarind, or jackfruit trees that everyone in the community shared naturally. Trees gave us shade during hot afternoons, fruits during difficult seasons, and spaces where children gathered and families connected. Trees were not just part of the environment; they were part of our way of living. Today, many refugee children living in Bidibidi Refugee Settlement are growing up in a very different reality.

Large parts of the settlement remain dry, exposed, and sparsely covered with trees despite hosting thousands of displaced families. Fruit trees are especially limited. Yet many children still carry the instinct and memories of searching for fruits the same way they once did back home. Because of this, children sometimes cross into nearby host community areas looking for mangoes, guavas, or avocados. In many cases, this has resulted in conflict. Children are chased away, beaten, or accused of stealing simply for trying to pick fruit.

Something that once represented childhood, sharing, and community has now become a source of tension and misunderstanding.

For us, this project began with a simple but painful realization. Displacement not only takes people away from their homes. It also disconnects them from the land, traditions, and everyday experiences that once made communities feel alive.

We began asking ourselves what would happen if refugee children could once again grow up surrounded by fruit trees within their own communities. What if children could safely access fruits without fear? What if restoring trees could also restore a sense of belonging, coexistence, and hope?

This project is our response to those questions.

Over a period of 12 months, we aim to plant at least 10,000 fruit trees across refugee households, schools, and shared community spaces within the settlement. The project will focus on climate-suitable species, including mangoes, guavas, avocados, oranges, papayas, and jackfruit. Each participating household will receive five fruit tree seedlings together with practical guidance on tree care, soil preservation, and long-term stewardship.

The project will begin with a community demonstration and learning event bringing together refugee youth, parents, local leaders, and members of the host community to plant and learn together before household distribution begins. We want the process itself to strengthen relationships, rebuild community ownership, and create a shared vision for greener and more peaceful surroundings.

Our goal is not simply to plant trees.

Our goal is to restore a way of life where children can once again experience the joy of reaching for fruit from a tree within their own environment. We want to rebuild spaces where trees provide not only food, but also dignity, shade, healing, and connection.

In the short term, the project will improve access to nutritious fruits for children and reduce tensions caused by children crossing into neighboring farms searching for food. Families will begin creating greener home environments in areas increasingly affected by harsh heat and environmental degradation.

In the long term, these trees will continue serving communities for many years. They will help restore soil fertility, reduce erosion, improve biodiversity, provide shade, absorb carbon, and reclaim green spaces within the settlement. As the trees mature, they will become living symbols of resilience and regeneration for both refugee and host communities.

This work is deeply personal to us because it reflects memories many of us carry from home. We know what it feels like to grow up in communities where trees represented life, generosity, and togetherness. We also know what it means for children to grow up disconnected from those experiences because of conflict and displacement.

Community response to this vision has been powerful. Many parents immediately connect emotionally with the idea because they remember the same childhood experiences and want their children to grow up with that same relationship to nature and community.

At TAO Africa, we believe restoration is not only about recovering degraded land. It is also about restoring relationships between people, memory, culture, and the environment around them.

By planting fruit trees today, we are planting more than seedlings. We are planting nourishment, peace, dignity, resilience, and hope for a generation of children growing up far from home.