Learning from the Swazi People

I have recently returned from Swaziland where I worked with a very small but wonderful non profit:Give Hope, Fight Poverty . The mission statement of GHFP is to educate, empower and lift orphaned and vulnerable children out of poverty. In order to accomplish this goal Give Hope Fight Poverty currently sponsors 19 orphans to attend school, provides funds/supplies for a computer lab and library at a primary school, funds methods to obtain food security, and is currently building a primary school in a rural area where the closest school is 12 km away. 

During my trip I was able to spend a lot of time with some of the children that are sponsored by GHFP. We would go to their homes to play different games with the hope of making these children feel loved and special especially since they are all orphans. One way GHFP is obtaining food security is by having the children garden at home and at school. This was really awesome to see because one of my major projects with re:TH!NK has been school gardens. I never would have thought to look and see school gardens half way across the world as well. 

Both the Oshkosh school gardens and the pLangeni school gardens grow cabbage, lettuce, tomatoes, spinach, and carrots! In addition, the gardens in Swaziland have fruit trees. The kids in pLangeni work very hard on their gardens because for many in is the main source of food. Throughout my trip I was continuously surprised when the kids would eat beets, cabbage, spinach etc. with excitement. It struck me that if the kids in the US were exposed to these types of foods at an earlier age they may show some of the same excitement. I cannot wait to see how the kids in Winnebago County react to the different FUN FOOD OF THE MONTH this year!

                  This is one of the fruit trees at the school garden in pLangeni.

 

         These pictures are from Malindza when we cooked the children lunch!