Moshi, TZ – School garden clubs overcome challenge, prepare to plant first crop – 22 Jul 2016

School garden clubs in Maendeleo, Mwangaria, and Oria primary schools are preparing to plant their first major crop for use in the school breakfast recipe. The clubs are targeting to have beans in the ground by the end of July to be harvested by the end of September.

Tupendane and the schools have put in months of work and overcome a number of challenges to get to this point. The most recent challenge came when students at Maendeleo Primary School failed to close the garden gate behind them when they went home for the weekend. Over the weekend donkeys got into the garden, ate vegetables, and trampled on the beds.

The root cause of the problem was a people and process failure. Roles and responsibilities were not clearly defined so no one person was responsible for ensuring the gate was closed. In response to the problem the school garden clubs have improved their organization and processes. Students are now broken into four groups within the garden club. Each group has a teacher responsible for managing the students and clearly defined responsibilities for each day – this includes a group designated to “closing out” at the end of the day by putting equipment away and closing the gate.

This improved approach will benefit the project beyond simply closing the gate each day. All aspects of the project can benefit from greater organization of people.

Leaders meeting to discuss how garden security.

It is fortunate that this issue arose early in the project life-cycle because it brought attention to a major risk with only minor damage suffered. If acres of beans or corn had already been planted and the donkeys had destroyed it, it would have been a more serious blow to the project’s success. In response to this risk, community leaders called a meeting to announce stricter rules for keeping livestock away from the schools and stricter punishment for people who are careless with their herds. Additionally, the community has agreed that as they clear land for planting bananas they will use the thorny brush they are clearing out to build a fence around the entire farm area so that no cattle, donkeys, or other livestock can get in.