Young Chris-Tiaan Nortjié is taking his responsibility to protect the earth very seriously, planting 5000 spekbooms to continue his initiative to fight global warming with the help of a little well-known wonder plant.
At just 11-years-old Nortjié has dedicated his free time to making South Africa and the world a healthier place one spekboom at a time. He has been working tirelessly to plant as many spekbooms as he can to turn the tide of global warming.
Nortjié started the ‘Spekboom Initiative Against Global Warming’ in December 2019 to raise awareness about the benefits of spekboom and as a result is educating more people about global warming and the terrible side effects that go with it.
In just a few months he has managed to plant 5000 spekbooms and he won’t be stopping anytime soon.
In recent months spekboom has received much attention for its wondrous ability to remove more carbon dioxide from the air than any other plant on the globe.
It all started when Nortjié decided to spend his December holidays planting spekbooms rather than playing outside or visiting friends. He had heard about the spekboom challenge, encouraging locals to plant at least 10 each in 2020, and decided to take it upon himself to plant as many as he could.
Nortjié’s story doesn’t end there, he is a young boy who is not only living with Autism and Asperger’s Syndrome but he is also being raised by his grandparents after his mother passed away in 2017. They say they want him to believe that he can make a difference in the world and so that is what Nortjié is doing.
What started as a hobby and a way to deal with the challenges in his life has bloomed into a passion and a cause close to his heart.
Now he is constantly working towards educating others and planting as much as he can, even producing an educational pamphlet to be distributed at schools with the help of his grandmother.
Locals are being called to help support South Africa’s youngest global warming ambassador and a BackaBuddy page has been setup where supporters can either donate to help him plant more or buy one of his Spekbooms.
With the help of locals everywhere Nortjié aims to purchase more mother spekboom plants, pot at least 12 000 plants for each year of his life, launch a social media campaign to raise awareness, hand out reading material to children at schools and visit five schools a week and 300 per year to educate as many people as possible on the wonders of the spekboom plant.
Pictures: Facebook
