From Uganda: Selecting a site for a school garden

Walking to the future garden at Mukongoro

This week has been busy with starting my new projects under the Batwa Development Program. I am first working with the agricultural coordinator to develop a school lunch program at Mukongoro Primary School for Batwa students. Poor nutrition is one of the biggest problems contributing to the cycle of poverty in this village. Many Batwa suffer from poor nutrition and a school lunch program could significantly help the Batwa children by providing them with at least one full meal per day.

For the school lunch program, we have realized we need to start from scratch by growing the food. We have a man (named Jumba) specifically responsible for the gardens. He is also being taught how to harvest the seeds so that he can continue the garden for years to come. The plan is to have some students from the school as his helpers so they can learn the skills and share them with their families back at home.

On Tuesday, Brian and I hiked up the mountain to Mukongoro to look at a potential site for starting the garden. We talked with the headmaster (since Jumba was absent) and he told us he and the students would build nursery beds for the seeds down by the stream over the next two days so that we could have the seeds planted by Friday. We are heading back up today to see the progress and maybe even start planting! We somehow have to get some fertilizer (chicken poop) up the hill to the garden though. Most people here carry things on their head so I am wondering if Brian and I will be carrying bags of chicken poop up the mountain on our head. I told Brian I think I would prefer to tie it to my back like they do with babies rather than have the poop on my head. He just laughed at me…

Sutter Allen, undergraduate, Human Development, UC Davis