The event was organized by non-governmental group Eco-Maktab (Eco-School) with the support of the U.S. Embassy in Tashkent. Children, volunteers and experts on gardening and landscaping planted about fifty different fruit trees and created a flower bed. Workshops on basic techniques of caring for gardens and flower beds, preparing feeders for birds and green design, as well as an open-air art studio were organized by the NGO, which presented a set of garden tools to the children of the orphanage, so that they care for the garden in the future.

“The children were happy; they had a lot of fun. All these trees and flowers that we planted today will grow into kindness and love for everything beautiful in the future, because this land that surrounds us is love, is beauty,” said the director of the orphanage, Ruzimuhamedova Svetlana.

The first Earth Day was held in 1970 in the United States and launched the modern environmental movement. Some 20 million Americans took to the streets, parks and auditoriums to decry increased pollution and to ask for a healthy, sustainable environment. Rising environmental awareness during that period led the U.S. government to establish the Environmental Protection Agency in 1970 and to enact the Clean Air Act of 1970 and the Clean Water Act of 1972.

“The United States has long supported Uzbekistan’s significant efforts towards implementing environmental protection programs and initiatives which support Uzbekistan’s path to sustainable development,” said Ambassador Krol. He also noted that the U.S. has supported many environmental projects around Uzbekistan, through a small grants program. “Because of this grant we are here today to plant some fifty different fruit trees, and we hope that they will grow tall and beautiful for many years to come. We are also witnessing the environmental work done by children that, among other things, reminds us of our moral obligation to protect the environment for future generations,” Ambassador Krol said. Ambassador Krol also presented the winner of the Embassy’s Facebook Earth Day essay competition with a book and a certificate.