An overview of the project
The Learn and Grow project will teach students to grow their own food for consumption at breakfast and lunch at 2 selected pilot primary schools within Kinyamaseke Town council and Munkunyu Sub counties.
Receiving adequate nutrition will improve the health and academic performance of 1500 students who attend these schools. The agricultural skills learned by the students will be lifelong skills that will help them in future vocational activities.
Schools in Uganda were shut down for almost two years because of COVID-19. The parents, guardians, and caretakers of students who attend these 3 schools now live below the poverty line due to the economic meltdown cause by constant lockdowns.
The selected primary schools teach classes from 8:00am to 5:00pm Monday-Friday but cannot afford to offer breakfast or lunch for students. Thus, the students attend school for 9 hours without food.
This 12-month project will develop school gardens in each participating school. An agricultural officer will educate both students and teachers on how to plant and maintain crops for consumption, including vegetables, maize and beans. Maize can be milled for flour to make breakfast porridge and lunch as posho accompanied by beans and vegetables. Other crops to be planted include cabbages, onions, eggplants, carrots, amaranthus dubius (dodo), solanum aethiopicum (nakati), and solanum gilo (entula). Any excess food will be sold and profits used to support each school’s education program.
