Help Raise 50K for Haitian Farmers to fight Hunger

Thank you for your generous support for Friends of Matènwa's GlobalGiving project "Help Raise 50k for Haitian Farmers to fight Hunger."

There’s progress to report in the effort to to create 126 school and family gardens as a sustainable solution to La Gonave's food problem.

From October through December 2022, staff with La Gonave's Institute of Learning at the Matènwa Community Learning Center made 24 visits to 13 schools, training 41 educators in how to plan and maintain a school garden.

We began by going over the first steps to preparing a school garden: measuring, fencing, and preparing the seed.

We were not able to give out garden tools and seed during this quarter because of the violence and insecurity on the mainland. Two of our staff did go to Port-au-Prince to bring school materials back, and they were kidnapped and robbed. We suspended all trips as a result.

We did meet with teachers and school directors to plan out the activities they needed to do in order to create an organic garden at their school.

First, we talked about the importance of fencing in your organic garden, especially because it is a vegetable garden.

Then, we talked about the type of material to use. We use live-fencing such as bushes or candelabra cactus. These types of trees and plants keep out animals and thieves.

After that, we taught teachers how to germinate seeds in pots and cans that had been

We presented what kind of organic fertilizer to use for germinating seed.

We had teachers identify different seeds and encouraged them to use local seed in order to avoid chemicals and be able to conserve seed for the next season.

Next they learned how to make a simple garden bed in which to germinate. After that we discussed what natural insecticide they could make and how much to use to protect their seedlings.

We also had them work in the organic garden and learn how to make compost.

Every time the teachers and directors come for training to the Matènwa Community Learning Center, we bring them into the garden to motivate them. They take notes on points about making a garden, then we discuss the questions they have about the garden.

Each school garden is created so that every student has a one meter square plot to plant four seeds or seedlings.

We explained how the students should take responsibility for watering, fertilizing, removing insects, and recording the growth of their plants – using illustrations and notes – until the vegetables are ready to be harvested.

We also encourage parents to make a small family garden at home to encourage their children to garden. We explain the importance of organic gardens and the disadvantages of vegetables that come from the mainland.

The teachers and directors learned more about how to prepare compost too. They also learned how to prepare two types of garden beds. We talked about how to take care of new seedlings and how to prepare fertilizer for transplantation.

From March through June 2023 we made 19 additional visits to train educators in school gardens.

Our goal during this period was to ensure that nutrition education in schools provides learners with the knowledge, skills and motivation to make wise dietary and lifestyle choices, building a strong basis for a healthy and active life.

This is what we observed of teachers and students during these visits:

• They are teaching their students about nutrition so that they have an understanding of it. This gives students motivation to work in the garden so that they are getting the nutritional foods that they need in order to build a foundation for a healthy and active life.
• We have observed that the children are very comfortable working in the garden with their classroom teachers.
• Teachers now know how to water plants, make garden beds, grow seedlings, transplant seedlings, and compost.
• They also know what time of day to look for insects and kill them before they ruin the plants.
• Teachers now know seasonal plants, when to plant and when to harvest.

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