Fighting hunger through gardening

[the_future_modernes]

School Gardens Promote Learning While Fighting Hunger

GUATEMALA CITY, Aug 11, 2011 (Tierramérica) - "Yesterday I planted 20 broccoli plants at home. God willing, they will grow and we will be able to eat them," said 12-year-old Juan Francisco Ordóñez, a student at a school in San Cristóbal Totonicapán where a school garden has been established in an attempt to alleviate hunger.

By the end of this year, the Alliances to Improve the Situation of Children, Food Security and Nutrition programme, initiated in 2010, will have planted a total of 44 school gardens in the western Guatemalan department (province) of Totonicapán. While serving as a teaching tool, the gardens are also aimed at combating the high rates of chronic malnutrition in this Central American nation.

"We learn how to plant vegetables and when to water them. We’re growing radishes, beets, onions, chard, hierba mora (Solanum nigrum) and broccoli," explained Ordóñez, a sixth-grade student who has planted a similar garden at home to help his parents and six brothers and sisters.

The principal of his school, Benjamín Tax, told Tierramérica that "we are happy because children and parents have come to ask us for seeds to plant at home."

The signs of hunger are evident in the classroom. "It is reflected in a lack of concentration and poor performance. When the children see that the school snack provided by the government is being prepared, their attention wanders," he commented.

In early July, the school’s 211 students celebrated their first harvest. "We made a salad with the chard and also fried it and made soup, but it was all eaten at the event," said Tax. MORE