Moshe, TZ – Community ownership is very important to the sustainability of Soko Primary’s Grow-Own-Breakfast (GOB) program – Dec 2024
Members of the Alpha Women Village Community Banking (VICOBA) group rode to Soko Primary School to maintain the school’s Grow-own-Breakfast (GOB) vegetable and banana gardens during the recent school holidays. This is so important because the parents and children of Soko Primary School live in a disadvantaged rural community, where it was difficult for children to be fed well at school in the past. This was a hindering factor for the children’s health, school attendance, academic performance.
Last year, community assistance organization Tupendane promoted the idea of building a school farm for producing food enough to feed the children. Tupendane also introduced the idea to the Alpha women Vicoba group, who are the parents of Soko Primary Children. Alpha group decided to contribute volunteer labor and materials to assist opening up of this highly needed farm.
The farm has been successfully opened thanks to assistance from the group, parents and children, a partnership with The Queen’s School, UK. , and volunteer assistance from students of The Queen’s School and Bethany School during the summer of 2024.
The farm’s vegetable gardens are now a major source of feeding for the children of Soko Primary School. We have observed the benefits to the children of harvesting enough vegetables every school day for their breakfast. We know that the security and sustainability of the farm is closley tied into community ownership. Hence, there is a need for maintaining the volunteering parents’ enthusiasm all the time. Tupendane has been able to associate with other local partners and sourced 10 bicycles to support Alpha group women who walk long distances to school for volunteering at the farm.
The Alpha VICOBA group faces the challenge of financial support for loans to their more than 80 women, so that they can become more fiancially stable in the future when Tupendane will handover most garden maintenance responsibilities to this group. Tupendane will then extend the GOB program to other schools that are in need within the district.
Deo, Tupendane’s manager says “we hope more partners will join us to make our dream of school self-reliance and sustainability by the community come true”. The next steps on the path to sustainability are building a protective fence around the vegetable and banana garden, and water infrastructure improvements.
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