Food Secured Schools Africa (FSSA) is a Social Enterprise that believes African schools could be bread-basket by promoting school gardening and agricultural teachings. FSSA will be source of motivated, passionate, and modern farmers. FSSA aims to combat the challenging problem of food and nutrition insecurities in our Africa. Food Secured Schools Africa (FSSA) is a registered social enterprise in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Its mission is to promote school gardening as a source of homegrown school meals as well as livelihood for the participating parents throughout the country. FSSA provides support to schools and parents in setting up the school gardens. Hereby, FSSA follows the strategy to build the local capacity of the stakeholder to take over the sustainable management of the gardens. FSSA is convinced that the provision of training to local capacity builders about sustainable agricultural practices is essential for cascading the knowledge about farming, raising awareness for the environment and reaching food security. Furthermore, the idea is that the school gardens serve as a teaching tool and that the vegetables grown there are used to supplement the school feeding programs with nutritious food. At the same time, participating parents can keep the surplus for them or sell it on the local markets diversifying their income. Currently, FSSA has supported the establishment and sustainable management of seven school gardens, located in Addis Ababa and Oromia Region, Ethiopia. Please contact me via email (eskyau@gmail.com) or phone (+251 904 399009) or visit FSSA’s website (www.sites.google.com/view/food-secured-schools) for more information.

Vision

To have a sustainable school –assisted parent – led school garden in Addis Ababa and beyond

To support the school feeding program

To use the garden as teaching tools as learning comes alive in the school garden. Any subject can be thought in this dynamic and hands-on the environment, from reading to science, math to nutrition, it’s all possible.

To create well passionate hardworking students in the future.

To catalyze the environmental protection agenda.

Minimize carbon emission

What FSSA offers

• Assessment and design of school gardens: layout planning, project cycle plan
• Technical assistance for the establishment of school gardens:
• Consulting on the creation of environmental clubs for youth-led/teacher-led school gardens: support to school management, providing options for organizational structure of school gardens
• Consulting on the creation of school-parent arrangements for parent-led school gardens:
• Community development activities:
• Coordination between private sector and school garden projects for (seedling) donations
• Raising awareness for environmental issues ….
• Capacity building in regards to managing the school gardens and sustainable agricultural practices: school garden kickoff workshops, hands-on training on plant propagation, composting, preparing beds for cultivation
• Promoting healthy lifestyles
• Awaken the community to involve in home garden and urban framing

FSSA is committed to creating sustainable solutions for the creation of school gardens that’s why we follow the objective to develop stakeholder-specific exit strategies for each school garden project. FSSA has a clear project cycle plan and exit strategy to slowly hand over school gardens to the local people by establishing school garden committees as well as youth-led (through environmental clubs), school-led (in cooperation with teachers, gardeners, school committee), parent-led (by marginalized parents of students) or community-led (by marginalized community members) school garden projects. The design and implementation of the school garden projects are carried out in cooperation with the relevant stakeholder with the objective to create effective solutions for the integration of school gardens in each school. For further information concerning the creation of local ownership and FSSA’s exit strategy for each school garden project please visit the school garden profiles on my website or contact us via email.

FSSA plans to develop a standardized catalogue of services and learning opportunities in form of capacity building workshops which can be provided to interested community leaders, government officials and other actors inside the schools. In the future, FSSA will continuously improve its monitoring and evaluation system to guarantee that the school garden projects are align with the Memorandum of Understanding and project cycle plan.

Furthermore, FSSA aims to improve the status of environmental education at schools in close cooperation with other actors of the civil society with AgriProFocus as one example. We hope that with the reform of the educational system and the reintegration of agriculture in public school curriculum, school gardens will gain importance in providing nutritious school meals and capacity building of the next generation.

SCHOOL GARDEN PROFILES

Specific activities

Environmental club for after school gardening, community development activities, raising awareness for environmental issues and sustainable agricultural practices

Description

When first visiting the Don Bosco Child Care Center which is a TVET boarding school that helps and trains street children in different technical skills the school owned ½ hectare of free land that could possibly be used for gardening activities. However, due to the lack of agricultural skills as well as interested and qualified agricultural teachers the land was neither used, nor cultivated and did not provide any benefit to the school feeding program. After FSSA showed interest to establish the vegetable garden for the school feeding program and other teaching purposes, the Memorandum of Understanding between FSSA and the school director was signed in October 2018. Subsequently, ten interested students were selected and trained for the garden practice which takes place on a regular basis after the official school time. They were trained on sustainable farming practices including methods of plant propagation and transplantation to decrease the school’s expenditures for new seedlings.

Because the school management strongly endorsed the concept of the school gardens and provided FSSA with the support of the former gardener Mr. Mituku, the outcome of the gardening activities are spectacular. After three months of successful farming operations, the garden became the most productive in the history of Don Bosco school gardens and is actively used as a tool to teach children about sustainable farming practises as an after school activity. Currently, the garden is actively used to produced a vast variety of vegetables providing additional nutritional value for the meals of now nearly 300 students following an innovative approach to home-grown school feeding.

For more pictures and information please visit the following websites: https://agriprofocus.com/post/5c2f7ae226b72a2d63084653 and http://donboscoethiopia.org/index.htmlor visit https://www.facebook.com/endobosco The future plans include holding a composting workshop and the establishment of a dairy farm which is already under construction with the objective to include dairy products in the school feeding program as well as to follow approaches to holistic land management promoting integrated agricultural practises.

In the case of the Don Bosco school garden project, FSSA follows the exit strategy to develop local capacity builders (LCBs) by teaching the school’s garden staff and the students involved in the after school gardening activities. FSSA ensures that the LCBs have the necessary capacity to implement, execute and lead the school garden projects after a certain period of time making it possible for FSSA to slowly decrease the time spent in supervising the garden activities. FSSA also envisions awareness trainings about health and nutritional value of vegetables during the mid-day meals, using the LCBs as multiplier within the school community.

By increasing the varieties of vegetables grown in the garden, the teaching and learning opportunity for students can be increased in the future. FSS will provide continuous support in the further integration of dairy production in the school garden concept by providing necessary consulting services. Furthermore, FSSA is committed to provide some oversight and support to the gardening activities if needed.

By now, FSSA has started discussions with the school management about the possibility of upgrading school gardening to an official TVET subject. Ultimately, the Don Bosco school garden could serve as a model farm where students are taught in natural resource management and integrated farming practices.

Specific activities

Environmental club for after school gardening, community development activities, raising awareness for environmental issues and sustainable agricultural practices

Description

Mekedala is a public primary school with 310 students in its school feeding program. The school owns one hectare of land which was not used for agriculture when the site was first visited by FSSA. Through FSSA intervention, six small garden plots were developed with and for the students to practice agriculture outside of school time. Moreover, one Permagarden was established in front of the classrooms in cooperation with fifty children and five teachers. The Permagarden method draws from permaculture and bio-intensive agriculture. FSSA aims to use this approach to create climate-smart school gardening.

After promoting school gardening at this school, the garden is used as a teaching aid for sciences subjects and to produce home-grown vegetables as lettuce, habesha gomen, tomato, carrots and Germen lettuce to support the school feeding program.The gardens have become a key practical teaching tool inspiring many students in school to setup their own little garden plot in front of their classrooms. The school owns additional ¼ hectare of land, which requires more workforce or a tractor for preparing the site for gardening. This land could possibly feed more than 300 students if properly cultivated.

At the Mekdela Public Primary School, FSSa trains local capacity builders (LCBs) for example teachers, parents and older students to enable them to eventually lead the school gardens on their own with the help of a specific school garden committee. By expanding the available garden plot in the future, a vast variety of vegetables will be grown in the enlarged garden providing better teaching and learning opportunities to students. Furthermore, FSSA is committed to provide necessary oversight and support to the gardening activities until the school garden committee is established. The respective exit strategy for this school garden project is to build the capacity to sustainably manage the school garden within the committee.

Specific activities

Environmental club for after school gardening, community development activities, raising awareness for environmental issues and sustainable agricultural practices

Description

When FSSA first visited the Beruhe Tesfa Public Primary School, it found one hectare of land on which school gardens have already been established. The school management rents this part of the land to low-income parents providing them with urban space for farming with the objective to supplement the school’s own school feeding program with fresh food, simultaneously creating an additional source of income and livelihood. Neither students nor teachers were involved in these activities. The gardens can be considered as one of the most productive school gardens in Addis Abeba.

On one side, FSSA aims to provide professional training on how to sustainably cultivate the parent-led gardens. On the other side, FSSA has the objective to integrate students and teachers in the gardening activities through supporting the establishment of an environmental club that could eventually expand the gardens.

To be able to slowly decrease its own engagement and to hand-over the garden to local ownership, FSSA aims to train parents and students as local capacity builders who will lead the gardens and spread the knowledge and skills within the school. By committing the parents to prove a saving records of 8000 ETB and above, FSSA promotes savings and hereby tries to ensure the continuity of the parents’ gardens.

Specific activities

Environmental club for after school gardening, community development activities, raising awareness for environmental issues and sustainable agricultural practices

Description

Abune Bysloys School, located in Kolfa Kernyo sub city, is one of the biggest public primary school in Addis Ababa. The school’s compound consists of four hectares of unused land, which could be made available for vegetable gardening. The school has one of the highest numbers of students (550) in the school feeding program and therefore a huge potential for home-grown school feeding activities.

After FSSA first visited the school, the school community including the school director agreed to initiate school gardening. FSSA has provided technical support to cultivate ½ hectare of the land but due to the big space and due to the reason that the land has never plowed or cultivated since 1963, additional efforts are required to prepare the rest of the land. At the moment, FSSA and the school are in the process of preparing the land and working on seedlings for transplantation. Through the gardening activities which take place after the official school time as a voluntary activity for the kids, about 150 students are learning about sustainable gardening practices. Moreover, FSSA was able to include interested teachers in the gardens which at the same time serve as outside classroom for various classes.

In the long term, the gardens will be either school-led by teachers or youth-led by the school’s environmental club as an after school activity for the kids. Ultimately, FSSA will train local capacity builders (LCBs) composed of teachers and older students that will promote the gardening activities within the school and serve as multiplier for teaching proper gardening methods. FSSA also envisions awareness trainings about health issues and the nutritional value of vegetables during mid-day meals, using the LCBs as communicator within the school community.

Specific activities

Environmental club for after school gardening, community development activities, raising awareness for environmental issues and sustainable agricultural practices

Description

In october 2018, FSSA has started working with SOS Children’s Village in neighbourhood, Addis Ababa. SOS is the orphanage centre that aims to ensure a better life and a safe place to live for vulnerable children in Ethiopia. The village has 31 mothers that take care of more than 300 children. The mothers are already farming in the SOS village on three hectares land. However, the crop production rate is minimal, because the mothers have minimal farming knowledge and skills. The village has additional?? 2 hectares of land could possibly feed more than 600 people without problems,FSSA has agreed to provide training to the mothers and children on basic farming skills, starting from preparing the land, over plant propagation, to harvesting. Also, FSSA has donated 2500 tomato seedlings received from Florensis Ethiopia PLC.

Link to SOS Children’s Village Ethiopia: http://www.sos-ethiopia.org/node/157

Exit strategy

Furthermore it's recommended that future school garden project

• Is designed more realistically in terms of roll - out and reliance on LCB(local capacity builders composed of teachers, students, parents and garden staffs in SOS case gardeners students and mothers are LCBS. ) if FSSA, significantly depends on LCBS for implementation of the project and that FSSA needs to ensure that the LCBs have the necessary capacity to implement the project effectively and that FSSA’s oversight and support activities are sufficient.
• Has a longer implementation period to able to develop and adapt the approach and to change agricultural practices .
• Maximizes the opportunity for learning by focusing on an appropriate variety of crops or vegetables in the school garden.and tailoring the provided support to the specific problems that gardeners students and mothers face.
• Includes a good planning , monitoring , evaluation and learning

system

• Mid day meals importance awareness trainings for LCBS.