Groups of 10 secondary school students will be trained to operate in rotation an integrated farm comprising vegetables, pigs, chicken, fish, mushrooms, limes and fruits on school land. Income earned will be reinvested, used to supplement inadequate school lunches, provide savings and daily expenses of students involved. This sustainable farm will provide nutritional lunches for children and teach appropriate skills for youth and their families to earn an adequate income in the future.
There are many children from subsistence farming families who lack adequate nutrition and, when they leave school, many are forced to migrate due to low income brought about by their family's limited agricultural skills and business opportunities. This integrated farming method at the school will provide school lunches as well as teach skills to enable youth and their families to earn adequate income. This opportunity would make it unlikely for the young to migrate to find a living.
The project will train youth and their family members to acquire skills from a model of proven, integrated agriculture, requiring minimal space. This sustainable project will help the youth generate adequate income without the need to migrate upon completing their secondary schooling. It will also solve the problem of nutritional inadequacy, especially for young children. Additional income generating activities will be added to the farm as the students' knowledge expands.
Apart from the improvement in nutrition for the students, the sustainable and demonstrated success of the integrated farm will be used as proof to obtain additional funding or microcredit loans, to launch new farming activities by the youth and their families. The skills and experience generated is expected to enable them to gain adequate income without having to migrate.
