Does your child have lunch at school? Not all children have such luck, e.g. children from a small village in Uganda, Kisoso. There was nothing to cook their lunch from. Until now. Thanks to the school garden, children can receive a meal at school. With full stomachs it will be easier for them to focus on learning.
Education is the key to everything. To better future. Growing plants is the basis of life. What is the connection between education and agriculture? The answer is simple: where there is not enough crops, there is hunger, the inherent companion of poverty, while poverty leads to poor education.
Unfortunately, still in some countries there are no systemic solutions, neither on economic, nor on social level. In Uganda there is not enough of effective agriculture or of money to feed hungry children. There is not enough of comprehensive policy focused on children protection. This is why the group of “street children”, who are unable to become independent and function normally in the society, keeps getting bigger.
HumanDoc Foundation decided to change this situation in one of Ugandan villages. Thanks to some private donors, we managed to raise money for a school garden for children from disadvantaged families. For the funds we collected, we bought a drip irrigation system, seedlings, seeds and tools.
In cooperation with Make a Change Foundation, we sent to school in Masaka district four volunteers, who trained the local community in building drip irrigation systems. These are very simple systems, which can be made even from plastic bottles, but thanks to these systems the crops can be multiplied.
collected during fundraising for the school garden
children participated in our project
volunteers conducted educational activities for children and took part in the preparation of the school garden
Volunteers and the residents of the village built together a drip irrigation system in the school garden created a month prior. They grow there onions, sweet potatoes, cassava, corn, cabbage and many other kinds of vegetables. These foods will be used to cook lunches for children, who haven’t eaten anything at school so far. More importantly, the surplus crop will be sold, and all profits will be used to maintain the garden in the future and to buy education materials for the school.
Project “Grow your Plant in Uganda” gave a chance to children from Mile Child School for a better education, following the principle that children who are not hungry, can focus better on learning. Additionally, children are responsible for plants in the garden. Each of them takes care of their plant from the very beginning. This way, children can learn how to be responsible, self-sufficient, independent, and what is more, they learn about new ways to grow crops.
The knowledge acquired during the workshops with the workshops and put into practice in the small fields of their parents will increase the income of families in Kisoso village.
The project was implemented from HumanDoc Foundation’s initiative.
The person responsible for coordinating the project in Uganda is Martin Mubiru – the headmaster and founder of Mile Child School in Kisoso. The project helped 150 children from the school, aged from 3 to 10 years old and their families, as well as 4 school teachers.