This project has taught me that planting and gardening is important to eating healthier. I have used what I learned to start a small garden at home—I always tell my parents what I have learned, and we do it as a family.
— Juana, student at Tzanchaj No. 2 Primary School
When we teach children to grow food from seed, we equip them with some of life’s most valuable skills.
Many of the children in our partner communities are small for their age. This condition, called stunting, is caused by a lack of nutrients in a child’s diet. In the state of Sololá, where Pueblo a Pueblo works, 94% of the population is food insecure.(1) Nutrition is a particularly pressing problem for rural Guatemalan families whose income relies heavily on the once-yearly coffee harvest. Many families struggle to make ends meet during the months when their income from the harvest runs low. During this time, many parents struggle to put any food on the table, and their families’ nutrition suffers as a result.
The Organic Teaching Garden project fights malnutrition and food insecurity in rural Guatemala by equipping students and their families with the tools they need to grow organic vegetables in their own backyards. The project creates a learning space for primary school students and teachers to learn techniques for organic home agriculture and gain knowledge of basic nutritional principles. Project participants attend workshops on topics like garden design, seed harvesting, and creation of organic fertilizers and plant-based insecticides; garden-based programming also serves to introduce project participants to new nutritious foods.
The Organic Teaching Garden project has its complement in the School Nutrition project, an initiative to educate local families in nutrition, food safety, and healthy home cooking. Students who participate in both projects not only learn how to grow organic produce at home—they also learn how to turn those home-grown vegetables into healthy meals for their families. Together, both projects empower families to use the environmental resources present in their communities to improve their nutritional intake and overall health.
1 National Institute of Statistics (INE), “Profile: Republic of Guatemala,” 2014.