The Forest Of Memories Discussed on Radio Woking

A short conversation with Jon Andrews on Radio Woking

Salmaan Nasser
Hi. My name is Salman NASA. I’m the chief vision officer for the Forest of Memories.

Interviewer
Okay, so the Forest of Memories, this is really a way just to remember the people that we’ve lost over the last year from clothing, I suppose so talk me through. How does it all work?

Salmaan Nasser
Our mantra is very much a life for a life. And what we intend to do is to plant a tree for all of those lost loved ones. To the pandemic. The reason we started the Forest of Memories was to remember the individuals who they were. The numbers that were coming out of the media were just numbers, and they aren’t numbers. They are individuals. They are people’s, mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, friends. And during this period, people haven’t been able to mourn. People haven’t been able to do the normal sorts of things that they would like to be able to do, to be able to move through the grief cycle.

Salmaan Nasser
And we came up with the idea of planting a tree for every life that was lost. And from there, the Forest of Memories idea really grew.

Interviewer
Right about it being not just about numbers. You see the statistics on the news every night, number of people that died totally. But it goes deeper than that. It is individual. And I lost my partner, Lava Sue COVID, and I kind of wanted her to be more than just a number to sort of tell her story. So I did lots of public stuff around that, but it’s interesting research, and they found that 56% of families have struggled to process the loss of ability of their death over the last year.

Interviewer
And I think it is down to that fact. You mentioned that we can’t sort of have the usual kind of procedures that you have when someone dies and the funeral services are very restricted, and it’s quite hard to process it, isn’t it?

Salmaan Nasser
It is absolutely. It doesn’t matter what sort of culture you’re from or what society you’re from. And this pandemic has affected the entire world. And everybody has their own mechanisms of being able to deal with grief, whether that’s sending flowers or whether it’s having a hug from a friend or a relative, to be able to cry on somebody’s shoulder. People haven’t been able to do that. Everyone’s been solitary, people haven’t been able to go to the funerals. People haven’t been able to move through that grief cycle.

Salmaan Nasser
And that’s something that we saw. And we recognise that fact and decided that we needed a way of remembering these people. So what we did as part of the Forest of Memories was to create something called a memory tree. And this will be a physical tree that will be planted in one of our forests that we create, which is attached to a digital profile. When you go to memorytrees. Com, you can see profiles of people who have dedicated trees. And there we hope to remember who they were, what they stood for, what their aspirations were, and loved ones can go on to that site and leave prayers, thoughts and comments as well.

Interviewer
So it’s sort of merging the virtual world and the real world. You got the physical tree and then you’ve got sort of the online side of it as well. That’s really clever. I like that.

Salmaan Nasser
Thank you. It seems to be received really well by the general public. We are a not for profit organisation, and we started out really tiny with just a few of us, only two of us working full time. But both of us were kind of working 15 hours a day sometimes to make this a reality. But that is the premise that we want to make sure that those individuals are remembered as the individuals they were.

Interviewer
And the forest itself is in. You’ve got a forest of trees in running meat at the moment.

Salmaan Nasser
That’s right. So we’ve partnered with the National Trust. They have been incredibly supportive and to launch the forest in the Runnymede memorials, we’ve been given a couple of beautiful trees. And what we’ve done is for all of the people who have dedicated trees. We have written out their names along with the date that they passed away. And we’ve tied those yellow ribbons to those trees in tribute. And hundreds of people have been going there all socially distance and all local people at this stage because of the lockdown.

Salmaan Nasser
But later, when it opens up, we hope people from all around the country will be able to come and pay tribute there to their love lost ones. So we’re asking people to come and dedicate a tree. It’s completely free to do so. And we will write those ribbons for them. And we’ve seen families who have been turning up, but it’s helping people move through that Greece cycle.

Interviewer
Yeah. Obviously, for families as well. If you have children in the family, going to a Cemetery, maybe kind of not as the best place to take kids. And this is somewhere that you’re sort of seeing trees growing and getting out into nature. So it may be a better option if you’ve got a young family and you want to sort of exactly that’s exactly right.

Salmaan Nasser
So you mentioned Cemetery. And when you go to a Cemetery, it’s a sombre place. It’s a silent place where you don’t want to make a lot of noise. But the Forest of memories, I hope to be very different to that. When people come to the Forest of memories, I hope they come with a smile on their face because I want them to remember who that person really was. What was the great thing about them and when they are coming to the forest memories? Yes.

Interviewer
I mean, absolutely so important. Just remember that person for who they were and not just a statistic in a newspaper on a website or something like that. You’ve got support you mentioned of the National Trust and also the Woodland Trust as well. So they advise in you on the best sorts of trees to use and things like that.

Salmaan Nasser
Exactly. So we’re being very careful with planting trees and making sure we’re not creating monocultures and things like that. So wherever our forests will be, we are taking advice from the people who know as to what types of trees will increase the biodiversity in that area and will be of benefit to lasting generations going forward.

Interviewer
Okay. And then the idea is you got your forest in money made, but then sort of more forests in other parts of the country, I guess.

Salmaan Nasser
Exactly right. So we’re talking with a number of councils up and down the country, and we hope to have a forest near to wherever people are. Really people don’t want to have a forest down the south if they’re living up in Scotland, for example, and vice versa. So we hope to have at least seven or eight different forests up and down through the UK.

Interviewer
It is a fantastic idea. And I think it’s something that’s going to be a lot of comfort for a lot of family. As you say, I’m struggling to process the loss of a loved one under such challenging circumstances. And for you, although you haven’t actually lost anyone in your family personally, you’ve been through it a bit. We’re losing your job during the pandemic. So tell me a bit about how the code is affected you.

Salmaan Nasser
That’s right. So like many other people at the beginning of the Pandemic, I actually lost my job. I was working in the city, in it, in the finance sector with AI, automation and robotic automation processes, helping banks with their customer journeys and automating those. I unfortunately, lost my job. They closed the UK office and since then after that, sorry, I went into lockdown with my family just like everybody else. My wife is a scientist. She’s working as a science teacher at the moment, and we were just sitting at home looking at the numbers.

Salmaan Nasser
And I just couldn’t believe that nobody was talking about who these individuals were that have been robbed from this planet just all of a sudden, through no fault of their own.

Interviewer
Absolutely. So that kind of sparked you from seeing that on the TV. Just think right. We need to do something. And that’s how always sort of care about them.

Salmaan Nasser
Exactly. Right. So we got a group of people together, some family members, some friends, some old colleagues as well, who had also lost their jobs. And we came around an idea of creating a not for profit organisation which would then have the sole aim of trying to remember these people through planting trees, so not just remembering them, but also doing something positive for the environment, too.

Interviewer
Absolutely. And if people are interested in this, it could be something beneficial to have a tree dedicated, a memory of a loved one how do we go about doing that?

Salmaan Nasser
It’s really simple. Actually, there’s no cost to you. You can go on to www. Dot memorytrees. Com, and you just need to register and you’re able to create a profile for your lost one and tell the world about that person. And for every profile that’s created, we will be planting a tree and also tying a little yellow ribbon with a name on it and putting it in a Memorial in the running. Mead Memorials wow.

Interviewer
Such a beautiful, a little thing to do and something that’s going to bring a lot of comfort. Thank you so much for telling us all about it today and thank you for what you’re doing as well. I think it’s such an amazing thing.

Salmaan Nasser
No problem at all. Thank you very much for having me.