The strength of partnerships during COVID-19
While Rwanda and the globe continue to combat COVID-19, we’re working with partners to ensure ongoing access to nutritious, sustainable sources of food. Check out how our work with the UN World Food Programme is helping students and their families get by during these difficult times.
Theoneste Bazambonayo, social studies teacher at Rundoyi Primary School
Meet Theoneste.
Theoneste Bazambonayo is a social studies teacher at Rundoyi Primary School in Rutsiro District. He’s also the lead teacher promoting nutrition and agriculture projects — such as the student-powered school gardens — at Rundoyi. “The school gardens act as an educational tool for both students and teachers, who learn how to establish and maintain nutritious gardens,” Theoneste explains. “We cover planting different crops, weeding, mulching, composting, preparing four-color balanced meals, and cooking demonstrations. Students also learn about new crops, like kale, nightshade, and radish, which are relatively new in the region.”
Rundoyi Primary School offers nine years of basic education, and students of all levels get involved in the school’s garden project. “Each class has a [garden] bed to maintain. Older students help to build double-dug garden beds, while the younger ones procure mulch and manure [for organic fertilizer].” Everyone helps to weed and water the gardens, and the fourth through sixth graders occasionally get involved with the harvest as well. Veggies from the garden often supplement school lunches.
But the benefits of the primary school’s gardens reach beyond the hilly, picturesque campus. “Parents often come to the school for meetings,” Theoneste notes, “and when they are taken through the gardening activities, they’re inspired, and some of them implement similar gardening techniques at home.” Students also receive seedlings to kick-start their own home gardens. So far, Theoneste has a list of nearly 60 families in the area who have started or improved their own gardens as a result of the school’s project.
The agriculture, nutrition, and health lessons at Rundoyi Primary School are particularly pertinent now, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Theoneste agrees. “Hygiene lessons are so important, as they are a key to preventing transmission of the virus, and the One Pot One Hour balanced meal demonstration enables people to make knowledgeable, nutrition decisions while boosting the immune system.” The caring teacher worries about the future nutrition and food security of his students, as household unemployment has risen since the pandemic hit Rwanda. But, the school continues to provide direct food support in the form of vegetables to particularly vulnerable families.
Meet Bosco.
Despite being a farmer himself, Bosco Baranyeretse has learned a lot from his children about agriculture, nutrition, and crop-maximizing farming techniques. At school, four of his six children receive agriculture and nutrition training, facilitated by Gardens for Health International and the Home Grown School Feeding Initiative, and they often bring home new knowledge, tips, and tricks. “The children improved our farming practices by teaching me double-dug beds,” Bosco reflected, referring to a garden bed-building technique that better aerates the soil and prevents erosion. “My children also help me water our garden at home, and overall maintain it as they learned to do in school.”
Bosco and his children grow a number of nutritious veggies in their home garden: amaranth, nightshades, Swiss chard, kale, and onions. Among his children’s favorites are amaranth and onion, along with beets and eggplant. “Vegetables are important,” Bosco says, “because they help us to fight off diseases and keep you healthy.”
Bosco has additionally learned from his kids how to prepare a balanced diet consisting of four colors: immune-boosting green, energy-giving white, muscle-building brown, and vision-strengthening orange. The veggies from their home garden, Bosco confirms, “all helped to prepare balanced meals during the COVID-19 lockdown.”
“I hope that my children will continue educating themselves about gardening and that they will continue to implement what they’ve learned.” Overall, Bosco wishes for a nutritious and healthy future for his six children.
Meet Providence.
Nineteen-year-old Providence Tuyishime is a natural entrepreneur. “My favorite subject is economics. By connecting what we learn to real life, it becomes simple. Not to mention, my economics teacher explains it so well!”
She’s also a star student and eager learner, constantly bringing new ideas home with her. That’s how Providence came to establish her own home garden, modeled after the gardens at her school.
“At school, I help with garden building and maintenance. I procure manure [for fertilizer] and work alongside my fellow classmates. And as a student prefect (leader), I want to be a role model in what I do,” Providence explains. “Now, I’ve taught my parents too. I created a garden at home with a variety of vegetables, which we can cook and eat.” Last season, Providence received seeds and seedlings from school. Since then, she’s built and cared for nine garden beds at home, and grown amaranth, onions, beets, and pumpkin, with carrots slated for the near future.
“For vegetables like amaranth and carrots, we used to buy them from the market. Now, we can just consume them from our own garden.” The young entrepreneur additionally sells excess produce for a little added income. “When I grow up, I want to farm vegetables professionally, and I want to farm in an even bigger space!”
Providence also champions the nutritional benefits of her veggies, citing a strong immune system as one of the reasons she particularly enjoys amaranth and carrots. Agriculture lessons like the home garden package, which outlines the nutritional benefits of a number of crops, and nutrition lessons like composing a four-color meal and the One Pot One Hour cooking demonstration, have particularly stuck in Providence’s mind.
Story by Jessica Wright, photos and interviews by Godfrey Gatete and Annonciatha Niyibizi