A Malawian permaculture project is helping primary school students understand the importance of environmentally-friendly agriculture. Twenty-two-year-old Pius Seda is the executive director of Greenify Global, a conservation movement that is working with schools in the Zomba region of the country.
The project, funded by the Global Changemakers Organization’s action grants, also puts an emphasis on the power of agriculture to foster self-sufficiency.
In an article published on Food For Afrika Seed says, “our goal is to address nutrition and environmental issues by creating agricultural ecosystems that are sustainable and self-sufficient. We have gardens in schools and we are growing everything organically.”
“We are targeting primary school students and it is being done in two institutions, namely Grace Orphan Care and Vulnerable Support Group and Matiti Government Primary School. We got the funding for the project from the Global Changemakers through their community action project grants.”
The programme includes nutrition lessons, and the volunteers instruct children on the importance of eating a variety of foods and how to cook their own meals. The project has even been included in the curriculum at Matiti Primary School.
While his team is small, Seda has brought together a group of like-minded youth who have been working on the project for the past four months.
“We realised that environmental and nutrition issues are escalating in our country. To tackle this, we thought of initiating this permaculture project in schools. We are targeting kids because we believe that we can change the status-quo if they are empowered from little.”
The Greenify Global volunteers aim to make the programme as engaging as possible by offering both theoretical and practical learning. The kids have taken part in the planting of herb gardens, fruit trees, and vegetable gardens.
Read the full story on FoodForAfrika.com.
Also read: Farmer 101: Permaculture tips to farm like Mother Nature
Get Stories of Change: Inspirational stories from the people that feed Mzansi.
