Harvest time: Children at Longamere Primary celebrate their bumper sorghum crop
There are other benefits too, since agriculture is a compulsory subject in Ugandan schools
Connie Akware
Education is the ultimate tool of empowerment for refugees living in Uganda. A safe place to learn helps children envision a new future as well as recover from the effects of trauma. Access to school also reduces the chances for exploitive and dangerous child labour and early marriage.
But, without many nutritious foods to eat at home, displaced children often have trouble concentrating in class. ForAfrika, therefore, wants to provide food at school for children. Teaching children how to garden provides them not only with the nutrients they need to excel, but also essential skills. Additionally, in Uganda, agriculture is on the curriculum, so the learning assists with this subject too.
Together with school administration, we have established gardens that provide vegetables and cereals all year round – with many of the children able to replicate them at their homesteads.
Longamere Primary School, in the Imvepi refugee settlement, is one of the biggest schools in the Terego district. On its five acres of land, we have planted sorghum, simsim [sesame], maize and vegetables that are used in the school’s feeding programme.
Additional benefits
“Growing the vegetables, diminished the time we spend thinking about what to eat!’’ says Annet, a grade six pupil. “We have harvested 500kg of sorghum, which the school shall use to buy beans and posho [porridge] for first term next year,” she adds.
“When we go home in the evening, we often don’t find our parents because they go to work or do business. So, since we had meals in school, we end up revising or doing remedial classes with our teachers after 4 pm,” young Taban explains.
“When food is given to these children in school they are attracted to the classroom,” said agriculture teacher, Duki Jackson.
“ForAfrika’s thoughtful intervention to support us has created a very big achievement to the school, especially with agriculture being one of the compulsory subjects. It has also reduced the burden of the school in enrolling more agriculture teachers, since ForAfrika’s extension workers are always with us,” he added.
Connie Akware is Monitoring and Evaluation Assistant in Uganda
