Alkale Dera school is a government school found in SNNPRS, Konso district, located approximately 16 km to the east of Karat town, capital of Konso. There are 498 males and 572 females learning in this school. The agro ecology of the environment is grouped under low land with an altitude of 1341 m. Azash Ankaso is the teacher in this school who leads the garden project with motivated students. They started up the garden on 100 m2 area. The main water source is rainwater with 20000-litre concrete reservoirs for roof water harvesting. This garden is sloped to the east with red clay soil that is fertile. There are 25 motivated students working on this garden with their teachers and they cultivate vegetables (beetroots, carrots and local cabbage know in local language as “habesha gomen”) and fruit trees (banana, mango and avocado) along the class rooms.
This school was established 5 years ago and it is surrounded by indigenous forest which is good opportunity for predators to live in and control pests from the garden.
The garden coordinator and his students are planning to scale up the garden from time to time and increase the diversity as well. Basically they need skill and knowledge so they plan to visit Karat school garden which is an established self-sustaining Slow Food garden nearby at nearly 16 km away.
They sell the products for a sociable price to students, teachers and the local community and use the income to sustain the project.
Every quarter there are special meetings and events so they prepare food from the garden and share it together with students and teachers.
Area
SNNPRS, Konso district
Coordinator
Azash Ankaso