The “No hunger Scolar Garden” or the “Ceg Zongo II School Garden” is a school garden created in 2010 and basically tended by the students under the care of two teachers. It is located in the third district in the Zongo quarter of Parakou township.
The general teaching college of Zongo has about 4,635 students from level 6 to Terminale.
The garden has two production sites inside the college.
The first is 30m2 and is used as an educational and sperimental site; while the produce from the second plot, of 100 m2, is marketed both inside and outside the college. A team of Life and Earth Science teachers oversees the pedagogic management of the garden. A 5-member committee of 3 students and 2 teachers has been set up to market the produce.
Off-season growing is quite significant and profitable. The activities are also intensified during this period. However, during the rainy season, the students grow crops to maintain the sites.
Some of the produce from the garden: ordinary legumes, salad lettuce, okra, tomatoes, green beans and edible mushrooms.
60% of the produce is given to help the children of the families who together maintain the permanent garden, and 40% is sold to the saleswomen in the canteen, to teachers and administrative members and to nearby people.
The first contact the groups had with Slow Food International was in January 2016, through the “Ankiandi Yan’Wan” convivium and the AVD Benin; since then, this last has constantly provided the group with the necessary equipment for its activities, via gifts of small production materials and training/coaching.
Prospects and projects: full time production; combine the garden market activities and agro-alimentary changes; set up a scholastic cooperative to combat hunger.
The “No Hunger Scolar Garden” is looking for a partner or contact with groups, organisations and institutions whose main aim is training young people to combat hunger in children.
Area
The Zongo quarter, third districtin the Parakou township, Borgou department
Coordinator
Gbena Frejusto Do Capio-Vianio Kougblenou
