By Maria Luetticke and Leonie Ziller | Project Leader
GlobalGiving report März 2022
It is Saturday, March fifth, 2022, and our nutrition project has entered a new phase a few weeks ago. With fresh motivation and a lot of interest from the people of Micani, we continue to pursue our goals: to secure food in times of climate change with sustainable agriculture.
But first a short review of the past months: before Christmas we successfully finished the project work for the year. The school gardens are in full operation and enrich the school lunch with plenty of vegetables. Particularly great for us was the success with the solar tents. The plants have thrived and a harvest has already taken place. With the tents the vegetation cycle has been reduced by 1-2 months. Now also the communities, which were disadvantaged by their altitude, have been able to catch up.
Last month we organized a "feria educativa" (a kind of educational fair) in the central village of Micani, to which each of the 15 schools sent students and teachers. There, they exhibited their vegetables, brought selfmade posters or self-written songs and performed small plays that fit the theme. For many children and teachers from the more remote villages it was the first school trip of this kind and it generally led to much enthusiasm. Thus, a very motivating end of the year could be created before going on winter vacation.
Now we are still in the rainy season in Micani, Bolivia. From mid-December to mid-March, many roads are impassable due to the heavy rainfalls. However, teachers and parents from some communities sent us fotos and infos with their cell phones. In independent organization they have already started with the sowing the gardens.
What is the agenda for this year?
We have two priority goals.
First of all, we would like to continue our project at the village schools. Since the solar tents produced such good results last year, we now want to build them in three more communities. Here, too, we experience cool temperatures and frost, so the school gardens would also benefit enormously from a solar tent. In addition, through our study of the children's eating habits, we have found that while there is rarely a lack of carbohydrates, there is a lack of protein. We would like to address this with a pilot project in 3 communities by establishing chicken farms.
Our second major goal is to start our work with the families of Micani. This is because a large proportion of these families are involved in agriculture and practice subsistence farming. The nutritional situation in the region can therefore only be improved holistically for all people if, in addition to schools, families are also part of our project.
40 families will therefore start to run a small farm in their backyard as their own micro-project. They will receive our support in purchasing the necessary materials as well as in the form of training on the topics of sustainable agricultural practices as well as the processing and preservation of food and basic knowledge in healthy nutrition. Our project approach is special in that we do not operate a standard solution for the gardens, because each family should be supported according to their needs. This means that individual, creative and independent solutions have to be found and put into practice by the family itself. Therefore we hope to empower the family and increase the ownership feeling of their garden.
We are very happy that with your support we will be able to extend our project and start working with families in Micani.
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