The east coast of Sri Lanka is one of the poorest regions on the island. The schools here have the aim of providing one hot meal per day to each student, however, in Ampara, schools on meagre budgets were struggling to meet even this basic need. In response, the World Food Program (WFP) commenced the School Feeding Garden Project to increase both the quality and quantity of food supplies available to students, ensuring they received a balanced and nutritionally rich diet. As an added dimension, the project has a peace building component by choosing six schools from different communities to participate. This included two Sinhalese schools, two Tamil schools and two Muslim schools – reaching over 3,000 children in grades 1 to 9.
In practical terms the WFP provided rice and dahl for each student and we were engaged as consultants to establish school vegetable and fruit gardens to supplement pupil’s diets. We worked with school development societies to design a garden for each school, based on Analog Forestry principles to increase land integrity and help restore biodiversity. We provided training and resources necessary for the gardens to be built, and supervised garden construction.
To ensure the long-term sustainability of the project, the students were appointed as caretakers of the gardens and we ran workshops in the care and maintenance of the gardens for each school. These included trainings to raise parent and teacher awareness of organic agriculture and land management.
The students really engaged with the programme and developed a renewed interest in their education - making special trips into school during the holidays to look after the plants.
The gardens were so successful that, in a competition organised by the Education Department, the Komari Methodist School and Parana Govipola Vidyala school came first in their regions.
This was a particularly special achievement for the Parana Govipola Vidyalaya school; situated in a very rural and deprived area of Sri Lanka some pupils come to school barefoot. The children, aged up to 14, were so inspired by the project they organised an exhibition on organic farming for other schools, devising and performing a play about the difference between organic and chemical agriculture. They were also featured on the local news in a celebration of their success.
Achievements:
- Two schools won first prize in an Education Department school-garden competition
- Students developed a renewed interest in attending school and their confidence in learning increased
- Teachers and students trained in organic farming
- School rice and dahl lunches were supplemented with nutritional vegetables
- Increased cooperation between children of different cultural backgrounds was fostered
- Students were inspired to start their own vegetable gardens at home
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