Moshi, TZ – Maendeleo Primary students re-build their thorn bush fence and vegetable garden – Apr 2023

The students are rebuilding their fence of thorn bushes, which protects their school breakfast vegetable garden, after sheep and goats broke through it and enjoyed feeding on the vegetables, destroying the gardens and school’s water infrastructure. As it is known it is impossible to choose who is going to be your neighbor, so Maendeleo Primary found themselves with a co-existence challenge with the livestock keepers in their area.

Children, teachers, parents of Maendeleo primary school in Kahe Moshi Tanzania have successfully implemented their Grow-own-Breakfast in collaboration with Tupendane. The program has benefited the children to access their daily breakfast servings at school, which was not the case before when many children were not given access to food during school days due mainly to the level of poverty in the community. The Grow-own-Breakfast has led to improved health, attendance and academic performance for the children, and increased body mass for some individual children.

Tupendane in collaboration with the school has been designing a repeatable productive process for children garden clubs, teachers and Mama Bustani (Garden mother) to use to make sure the local available fence of thorns is under periodic maintenance all the time to make it strong enough to stop the goats and sheep from interfering with their gardens. A strong entrance door has been built to improve the security of the garden. The children dream that one day the garden area will be protected with a permanent fence to avoid future conflicts with animals and allow harmony within communities that have different interests.