Nourish Colombian children with vegetable gardens

On 2022 we have been working mainly with single mothers of 50 children from a rural public school in La Calera, a town near Bogota. We have developed 13 workshops about nutrition, we have gathered to cook and learn the benefits of food, healthy and cheap recipes and good handling practices for food safety. The first 5 encounters were focused on strengthening the social fabric, creating trusting relations between the women and increasing their support networks. Moreover, promoting their leadership and communications skills with the intention to achieve their empowerment by increasing their self-esteem.  

Also, we want to tell you about the responses we got last month from the satisfaction survey. “Cooking has been a healing ritual for me” “I am aware about the importance of food security for the health of my family, this is something everyone needs to know” “These spaces are the only moment I have to care for myself”. All of them stated to be aware of the importance of their role as keepers and that they feel more confident, they notice more their emotions, and have strengthened their abilities of self-care. No less important, their knowledge of health and nutrition has increased.  

In this school we have two orchards, in the one we created last year (25 mts) we had already the first harvest of potatoes and aromatic plants. Now it is sowed with 5 different vegetables that in two months we will harvest, it also has 2 species of fruit trees. Besides, last month we created a new orchard (160mts), each Saturday we gather to prepare the soil, make compost, and create beds for sowing. We hope to sow 12 different vegetables and tubers, as well as plant an edible forest that surrounds the garden.  

For children we developed 4 encounters to learn the benefits of food while drawing the live process of the food until it gets to our table, we created a play to understand Food security in a forest, in order to them to understand each dimension: access, availability, consumption, food safety. Furthermore, children have decorated all the wooden planks of the fence of the new orchard.  

We want to thank all the donors that contributed to this project, it was a great help for the development of the last activities. For the project's closure we offer a course about orchard management for the parents of the children we support, in partnership with the University Corporación Unificada Nacional de Educación Superior, CUN, we provided 30 hours on-site and online on YouTube.  

We developed a course to integrate knowledge and experience, CUN offered all the technical learning about orchards and Soydoy offered the business administration approach. We aimed to strengthen their capabilities to earn income and enhance their Food Security. For 6 Saturdays we met to learn by working in the school orchard of La Aurora, located in La Calera, principally we worked with single mothers who have a genuine interest in their empowerment and the wellness of their families, and so of their community.  

They learned about: Personal finance, Agroindustrial administration, Seeds and nurseries, Strategic planning, Faming systems, Soil and substrate preparation, Orchar care, Harvesting techniques, Post-harvest and food transformation. Not less important, we cooked while learning about food safety and the benefits of food, to significantly impact in their consumption of varied nutritious food. Lastly, we strengthened the social fabric and increased the support networks of the families that participated.  

If you want to continue supporting our projects find more about it in the following links: 

Links:

• Food Security in Cundinamarca
• Keep in touch with us
• Food Security and the social fabric in Jewrwa