How the Endava Thank You forest started?

Near the end of 2021, moments after we finished planting the 6000 trees in Plackovica Radovish. Endava employees reached out for possibilities for collaboration with Treebanks. Throughout the meetings with Endava’s team, we learned that they are creating this “Thank you forest”. They are enhancing the power of simple THANK YOU by planting a tree in the Endava Thank You Forest and creating positive environmental impact.

2021 was transformational for Treebanks, the ongoing pandemic heavily affected our revenue streams so we pivoted to non-profit and started accepting donations. It is the first time that we are announcing this publicly. More about this will follow in our future posts. Let’s get back to the Endava’s “Thank You Forest”.

Endava wanted to plant 2000 trees near Skopje so their employees could participate easily. Participate without causing additional damage to the environment by traveling to the planting location. Planting 2000 trees is something that we have done in the past, Endava’s vision aligned with Treebanks’ vision and we have recently started receiving donations. All in all everything was a good match.

Location of the Endava Thank You Forest

It is not our first time planting in the Skopje Area. We planted 100 trees at Vodno for the Macedonia 2025 summit. Through the years of Treebanks’ work a lot of people suggested to us to plant some trees at Skopska Crna Gora. We note all the comments and we try to make them happen whatever possible. We reached out to the Municipality Of Gazi Baba to ask them if they have any suitable location in the area they manage. To our surprise, they went further and connected all the important subjects in the location finding process.

The Faculty of Forest Sciences, Landscape Architecture and Environmental Engineering already had a forestry study done for the region. After some negotiations we chose a location in the surrounding area of the village Rashtak. By the study the chosen area has brown earth soil, some rankers and leptosol soil and it suffers from surface erosion with visible under surface movements. The study suggests planting 3300 deciduous trees in drilled holes. For this planting we chose 2000 Manna ash (Јасен, Fraxinus ornus). We actually planted the whole area (3200 trees) and a post for the other 1200 trees will follow.

The planting day

Our day started early in the morning. At 6:00 we had our morning coffee, we loaded our drilling equipment and the young tree seedlings and set the course to the planting location in the Rashtak Village. There is no tree planting without our Treebanks sign to guide the Treebanksers. Shortly after we raised the sign our seasoned volunteers arrived. Special thanks to Petar, Andrea, Ljupco, Kosta, Kristina and Uncle Oli(ver). We paired each of them with a group of Endava’s employees so they will explain and guide the process of planting.

Half of the holes were supposed to be dug by Makedonski Sumi, but they weren’t. Unfortunately, one day earlier there was a fire in the mountain and they couldn’t prepare the terrain for us. We swiftly adapted to fix the problem and put our equipment in use and started drilling holes around 8:30. Shortly after the employees of Makedonski Sumi appeared with their drills but maaan, their drills weren’t fully functional and they weren’t of any help.

On every planting we have a small refreshment point with some sweets, water, tea etc. Today, Dime and Paki are our masters of refreshment. They set up their portable bar with refreshments, aggregate for hot water and speakers to add groove to the planting vibe. We poured some rakia to celebrate that we have enough holes ready for the forthcoming Endava planters.

The Endava treebanksers

Minutes after 10:00 the employees of Endava arrived, they brought some additional refreshments. The air was filled with positive vibrations and everyone was eager to plant trees. We gave a short overview about the planting location (see more details above), tree species and the standard tutorial on how trees are planted. And the planting started.

Andrea and Kristina are responsible for the distribution of tree seedlings and the help around the planting, others are drilling holes. All the volunteers are working so good and fast that it looks like planting trees is encoded in their DNK. (Or maybe they all read the How to plant a tree infographic we sent to them upfront 🙂 ). At some point, self-initiated they started watering the planted trees with water from the nearby water fountain.

One of the Endava employees, Aleksandar, tried using our drills and he joined the drillers crew. At the end of the day, we declared him as the best hole driller. Around noon we completely planted one of the hills and made a group break for refreshments. After that, we started planting on the second hill and continued to finish the work planned for the day. The Municipality of Gazi Baba employees visited us to see what is happening and how we are progressing. We made a few jokes with them. Asked them if they were here to “fine” us for “speedy planting”.

We planted all the trees planned for the day and the “party” continued on the Paki’s refreshment bar. Full of joy for the work done everyone shared their retrospective for the day. We gathered our equipment and called it a day.

We are thankful to Endava for choosing Treebanks as their partner for implementing the Endava Thank You Forest in Macedonia. Here is Endava’s achievement page.

If you are a company that wants to contribute to the environment by planting trees or you want to engage your employees in planting trees. Do not hesitate to contact us.