By Zayn Abaakil | President
Dounia Project is partnering with school food providers and local farms in the Rabat region to conduct workshops and activities for children, parents and community members on food access, nutrition, organic farming and food justice. We developed an extended curriculum for trainers, school administration and teachers, and farmers. This document will serve as an academic support for the day-to-day program activities in-school and out-of-school time. The first program will start in September 2018 in a Montessori school in Rabat and in partnership with two organic farms in Ain Aouda and Tifelt. In the first phase of the program, children will learn about organic farming and responsible gardening by visiting the farms and growing vegetables, fruits, grains and herbs in the school garden. They will look at every step of the growing process from planting the grain to the harvest – they will learn about the different products, how and in which order they should be planted, how to monitor their growth, how to make compost and what plants must be used to repel unwanted insects and plant diseases. Moreover, participants will learn about water access and availability and how wells are being dug and the engineering behind it. Finally, they will learn about the treatment of the products after the harvest for grains like quinoa and wheat. In the second phase of the program, children will learn about cooking, nutrition, health and self-sufficiency. Participants will learn to make meals out of the products from the school garden particularly whole-wheat bread, homemade pasta and vegetable marinades. Through interactive activities, they will learn about their nutritive needs and the importance of healthy and balanced meals. They will then explore the issue of access to food in urban settings and expose eventual solutions to address problems of food access inequality in their city. Finally, children will share their findings with other school children from another school in New York City that will be working on a similar project via videos, photography and scrapbooking. At the last phase of the program, children will create final projects and invite their families and community members to raise awareness on the importance of healthy, equitable and responsible farming and nutrition. Throughout the year, the participants will have organic healthy lunches prepared by a school food provider BentoMoo with products coming essentially from the two partner farms.
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By Zayn Abaakil | President
By Zayn Abaakil | President
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