Provide Seeds for Haitians to Grow 50 Tons of Food

Communities often know what they need. The people actually on the ground growing vegetables for themselves and their communities know what projects should do and whether the project is working.

But to help us even better understand whether our projects are meeting a community’s needs, we may engage a bilingual local liaison to share program ideas, struggles, and results back to us.  

In Madagascar, we partner with Caring Response Madagascar Foundation (CRMF) on a program that combines women’s literacy training with gardening. Charlotte, a former Peace Corps volunteer, serves as such a liaison for the CRMF program. She recently shared a story about her site visit with us. She begins with a quote from a participating family:

Stories from the garden

“I really enjoy gardening. Since we just had our first baby girl, it has been so nice to be able to produce fresh vegetables for our family. Sometimes we eat the vegetables and if there are too many we sell it to others in the neighborhood. This allows us to save a little money to purchase other items that we need. Last yield, we harvested so many different variety types: cauliflower, zucchini, cabbage, and eggplant. You know what my favorite part of having a garden has been? Well, it is truly seeing that you are produce something from seed to vegetable. How beautiful it is to see the plant grow and turn into something that is edible. It makes me happy to be able to provide for my family. “

-Mme

Madagascar site visit report by Charlotte

We visited:

1. A couple of family compounds with gardens

2. Literacy promoters

3.Local seed sellers

4. Examined the various diseases that have been damaging plants in this region

I will be coming back out here to visit the literacy homes and gardens in the next coming months. Right now is low season, there were no crops in the garden, all had been harvested.

The format and structure of the literacy centers has shifted, as explained by Program Manager, Vero:

“This year we have changed our this to concentrate all our centers (except two of them) in five districts out of 138 in the city of Toamasina.

Last month we did  a house to house survey in these 5 districts. Survey results told us that1200 people don't know how to read and write, but there are about 150 volunteers ready to teach them and hundreds of families coming forward to give the space in their houses for running literacy centers!

Two weeks ago,all these volunteers were given a special training on how to teach literacy to adults. we got ready all the books, slates, black boards for 109 literacy centers in these 5 districts.  All these centers have started teaching. Our more experienced literacy teachers will be promoters or type of supervisors visiting all these literacy centers every day and helping out the volunteers.

We would like to bring 100% literacy to these 5 districts. We have just started, and we have a long way to go.

Regarding the garden project we would like to propose that the literacy supervisors will be taught first hand how to use these and they in turn will take teach special classes in the literacy centers when they make periodical visits to the 109 literacy centers and the other two previous ones.”

SPI Madagascar Fact Find by Peace Corps Volunteer Charlotte

SEEDS:

We sat down together and here is a list of 10 types of vegetable seed they are interested in.

1.    Cabbage

2.    Collard

3.    Cucumber

4.    Eggplant

5.    Kale

6.    Lettuce

7.    Mustard Greens

8.    Onion

9.    Squash

10. Tomato

LITERACY CAMPAIGN:

Languages Spoken: (Malagasy, French)

1.     Literacy Promoters are hired staff by the Brothers of St. Gabriel program. They have been trained and given documents to teach the local volunteer teachers how to disseminate information and properly teach.

2.            Volunteer teachers are spread out, they are local Malagasy men and women who have chosen to help out their community members. They are trained by the Literacy Promoter and given teaching materials and classroom materials (chalk, small blackboard, books, pens, etc.…) They open their home to students to receive a positive learning experience.

3.            Community Members are the students that come from 5 different neighborhoods. There are approximately 1200 community members who participate in these programs.

Structure of Teaching:

The Volunteer teacher offers his/her home to the students who meet every day for one hour a day. During this hour they share lessons, questions, and promote positive learning.

LEVEL OF TRAINING MATERIALS:

Vero, Director of Literacy Programs and Brother Edwin concurred that it would be best to keep the training materials to a beginner level. They expressed interested in having the posters and training materials be much more picture/drawing based with light wording.

PLAN MOVING FORWARD:

Once the training materials are drafted up and finished my thoughts were to have a top down training.

LOCAL SITUATION:

Compost-

In addition, with regards to compost, there has been a much excitement for producing local compost among the current families that garden. I also had the opportunity to visit a small business that works with worms to make compost “Vermicompost”. They have been very successful and produce really amazing natural compost using all worm castings. They are using earthworms to create a heterogeneous mixture of vegetable, cardboard, and vermicast (worm manure). Apparently this particular kind of compost has shown that the worm manure has a higher saturation of vitamins and nutrients than organic materials before vermicomposting. It is used as an organic fertilizer and soil conditioner for plants, vegetables, and fruits.

Pests and Illnesses-

After visiting some of the family gardens, many of the families expressed that pests and illnesses are very difficult to conquer. They use local products such as soap, hot pepper mixture and spray it on the garden beds to get rid of bugs, yet still have not been successful in eradicating or eliminating the pests. They are very interested in knowing more about ways to produce healthy vegetables and protect their garden.

Water-

Thankfully here in the East Coast region on the island, water is abundant. Even sometimes a bit too abundant, with inundations and stagnant water beds forming in alleyways. Resources for watering gardens are usually found inside the family compound. Families most likely share a water pump, groundwater, and are able to year-round have access to water.

As we move toward Mother's Day, please consider renewing your support of Seed Programs International, perhaps utilizing GlobalGiving's excellent gifting mechanism, which provides attractive print-at-home, e-card, or printed card options to alert your friend, loved one, or employee of the gift made in their honor.

Thank you on behalf of those in Madagascar, and from here in North Carolina.