A community school for all (children) in Fiarenana

Our newly introduced seed ball technology (see website and/or project report) can potentially increase our reforestation efforts many-fold, while it is fun for old and young.

Why teach making seed balls?

This idea is inspired by the lessons learned from our cookstove project in Tsaramandroso. There people prefer to make charcoal by hand, instead of using the mechanical ‘hand and hammer’ tool developed by Zahana. (More about that at another time.) While the hand and hammer is more efficient to produce charcoal bio-briquettes, making it by hand is something they can do ‘on the side’ while they sit around, relax and chat after a long day in the field.

Charcoal briquettes inspired the seed ball project

The plan: Get people together to make seed balls. In the workshop you learn about gathering and mixing the ingredients. Initially you use the tree seeds provided by Zahana, but are also encouraged to collect some seeds in your area. Soon everybody will be making their 100 seed balls while chatting away. Many people working together on a common goal and chatting is a great educational opportunity: you can talk about the importance of reforestation. Not as a boring lecture, but focusing on the positive impact of reforestation and the importance of trees for their children and grandchildren. And the role of collecting native tree seeds versus ‘outside’ trees for their seed balls. Especially grandparents are always interested in their grandchildren’s future. As elders, they themselves are respected teachers in their community. If they in turn are inspired to teach how to make seed balls the workshop becomes a train-the-trainers session.

That’s our theoretical frame work for our school seed ball education project.

Children are having fun throwing seed balls all over the landscape. If they only had enough seed balls they might play this game endlessly.

Around August, schools in Madagascar are on winter break for two months. This leaves our students with nothing to do, especially if they’re still too small to work in the fields with their parents. But it also leaves our teachers in limbo, because they are not working.

So, we started an experiment for the school break in 2021: The teachers work during the break. They get their students together in the school yard to make thousands of seed balls.  Our team already acquired tree seeds and delivered it to our schools. We encourage our teachers to think creatively and consider so many little hands forming seed balls together in the school grounds as a great opportunity for education. While they make clay seedballs the teachers can talk about reforestation, about the roles of trees in our lives, about washing hands etc.

Well, at least this is the plan for this winter break. Try something new, and literally field test if it works.

Two things are already guaranteed: it keeps our kids busy and out of mischief and our teachers gainfully employed. And if we end up with hopefully  thousands of seed balls we have over 200 volunteers that will most willingly throw them all over creation. This leads to the next exciting field test: do seed balls actually work? After all, only time and (hopefully) the next rainy season will tell. But having a few thousand seed balls for this experiment at hand to fling, sure can’t hurt.

“At a first look this photo looks like another reforestation story” I thought when I first opened my email. Little did I know that the story was much bigger. With very patchy Wi-Fi access in Madagascar pictures need to be send when it is possible, not when it is convenient. So, the story followed later, first by text message and then by video chat.

Right around the time the schools reopened from countrywide COVID-19 closures, we entered the beginning of the planting season. Earlier reports, during the school closure, talked about teachers and students getting more involved in (school) gardening under the supervision of our very own Donné.

In the second photo you see that the students are actually planting cassava. Once harvested, this cassava will become part of the school food. It is a very important step of making the school self-sufficient and have the students plant, grow and harvest as much of their school food as possible. Located on a hillside this land is not suitable for rice cultivation. Thanks for the generous offer of our gardener Bary, who owns it, the school can use it to grow food. Farming on a hillside requires terracing and is very labor-intensive, but with the help of dozens of little, energetic gardeners is easily accomplished.

Links:

• Close schools and kids are hungry in COVID-19 times
• School meals for the children in our schools
• Food Security - or: Do people have enough to eat?