World Food Program School Garden Training (Written March 13)

Last weekend we went back to our training village to participate in a World Food Program (WFP) led training to support the creation of school gardens. The WFP already provides oil and rice to schools across The Gambia and now they are funding a pilot project to include vegetables in school meals. The goal is for each student to have at least one hot and nutritious meal per day. Fourty schools were selected by the WFP (20 to be funded by the WFP and 20 by other institutions) to receive training, seeds, and tools to create new gardens or expand existing gardens. Students and staff from each school as well as community members received training on important factors in site selection (proximity to water source, smooth not rocky ground, etc), the creation of seed boxes (essentially mini nursery beds), the creation and use of local pesticides and compost, the importance of vegetables in a healthy diet, and how to properly account for and report on the progress of each garden. They concluded the training by creating an action plan for each school and distributing tools (all of this occured in one long action packed day).

Overall Sarah and I were impressed with the training. Personally we benefited from the section on local pesticides and have found that a combination of onion, garlic, hot peppers, and laundry water left in the sun makes an effective termite deterrent. We also briefly discussed the problem of corruption in school gardening. Because the WFP does not want excess food to rot, they allow schools to sell surplus produce. What will keep schools from selling all the produce? What will keep schools from only putting vegetables in the teachers food bowl and selling the rest? Unfortunately this is a very serious concern. While we as Peace Corps Volunteers cannot actually be involved in monitoring the schools and reporting on those engaging in corrupt practices, we helped the WFP leader of the workshop brainstorm some potential tactics she can implement. Hopefully at least some of them will be successful and most of the produce will actually go to the hungry students.