School Garden Project Brings Hope to Refugee Students
Published
2016-02-09
The elementary garden club at Dalat International School in Penang, Malaysia is reaching out to help Burmese Rohyngya refugees. The club meets once a week to learn about good gardening practices and the principles behind the hydroponics. The students have been working on a small portable hydroponics unit with which they grow two types of spinach: local and Brazilian spinach, and both are growing nicely.
Through their instructor, Lisa Munson, the students have provided support for sharing this hydroponics kit with a refugee school in Penang as a way to help the students there. The students have also have shared the knowledge they have gained about sustainable gardening from their hands-on exploration.
Most of the plants at the refugee school are growing well and the students are assigned roles to care for the plants, which has been a positive opportunity for them. However, due to the issues surrounding the refugee situations, all the plants have to grow behind locked doors; there is a possibility that if plants are grown outside, they would be stolen. The indoor room condition has caused some of the plants to die, but moringa, basil, and spinach are still growing well.
More Resources:
- Some of the seeds for this project were sourced from the ECHO Asia Seed bank.
- Community garden resources and Community Garden Toolkit [PDF]