Kikondo, UG – PEAS Samling Nama Secondary School Agriculture Club members get their hands dirty learning FAITH gardening – 30 Jun 2022

In the second school term, the PEAS (Promoting Equality in African Schools) Nama Secondary School Agriculture Club Members continued learning FAITH (Food Always In The Home) gardening to assist them to progress along the Access Knowledge, Apply Resources and Strengthen Health stages on the path to sustainability. From April to June club membership grew from 22 members to 50 members. With Wamukisa mentoring, the learners trained in and built a FAITH garden with 12 beds using land provided by the school. They used finished compost from the batch started at the end of school term one to nurture the soil in two of those beds. Now the agriculture club takes full responsibility of farming in the school. Wamukisa provided them kale, bitterberry (eggplant), cucumber, and carrot seedlings to plant. After seeing the first compost pile raw materials of green plant material, dry plant material, and manure transformed by time and micro-organisms into small particles of finished compost, the club members built two more large new piles to nourish the remainder of the garden in the future. The school administration has scheduled additional time mid-weeks for the club to weed and maintain the garden. The school has an existing resource of a water bore hole. Students will transport water from the bore hole to a new 240 liter barrel at the garden site, which they can use to water crops efficiently.

The Agriculture Club has many opportunities for learning. Learners participate in process-planning the steps from undeveloped land, to nourished soil, to planting and maintaining crops, to harvesting nutritious vegetables. The club’s teacher mentor Mr. Damulira plans to include discussing the arithmetic of measuring compost volume and of bed and garden dimensions. The biology of compost decomposition, plant photosynthesis, and crop genetics are fascinating in the field. Wamukisa provided Mr. Damulira and the school computer room teacher with internet links to over eighty educational sites that each have a multitude of related science lessons.

The Agriculture Club dreams of expanding. Many of the members have said they want to bring FAITH gardening back to their home villages at the end of school term. The school has provided land for a second 12-bed garden. With two gardens and a dedicated and growing Club membership, all the school’s 600 learners will be able to enjoy the benefits of organic vegetables.