The Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (SEARCA), in partnership with the Center of Excellence on Sustainable Agricultural Intensification and Nutrition (CE SAIN), will conduct a series of training program titled Trainers’ Training for Integrating the School-plus-Home Gardens cum Biodiversity Enhancement Enterprise (SHGBEE) in ATPs and Mini-ATPs in Cambodia, that will run from 1 December 2021 to 9 February 2022 via the Zoom platform. Expected participants are teachers, principals, officials and representatives from CE SAIN, Raksmey Sophanna High School, Samdech Euv High School, Institute of Community Development, Sor Kheng Chanteu II High School, and Chea Sim Tbeng Meanchey High School, all in Cambodia. This initiative is in line with SEARCA’s core belief that investing in nutrition for children and young people is one of the keys in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030.
The SHGBEE is a form of scaling and structuring on the gains of the project "A Participatory Action Research on School and Community-Based Food and Nutrition Program for Literacy, Poverty Reduction and Sustainable Development," otherwise known as the School-plus-Home Gardens Project (S+HGP). The project was implemented in six schools in Laguna, Philippines from 2016 to 2017 which aimed to achieve improved nutrition, education, and economic well-being of children and in support of the Gulayan sa Paaralan and the School-based Feeding Programs of the Department of Education (DepEd).
The training program aims to boost the capacity of teachers and local government offices by developing a core team with the added information, skills, and understanding for properly disseminating the needed concepts and values to students in the CE SAIN target schools for the Agricultural Technology Parks (ATPs) and mini-ATPs. Moreover, the training will be a venue for discussing experiences, initiatives, and good practices for implementing S+HGP or similar activities; explaining key elements of food and nutrition, sustainable development goals, organic agriculture, biodiversity, and edible landscaping for integration in the S+HGP and their links to income and character development; describing the process and requirements of designing, establishing, and maintaining edible organic school gardens; biodiversity enhancing landscaping, and the involvement of students, teachers, parents and local institutions to support, scale up, and disseminate information about S+HGP; knowing the steps in preparing sample learning lesson or teacher’s logs; and equipping teachers with materials that can be used for complementing S+HGP integration in the curriculum.
The training program will feature topics such as Sharing Initiatives on School Gardens, School Gardens for Food and Nutrition, Guiding concepts of S+HGP, School Gardens for Education, School and Home Gardens for Livelihood, Participatory Visioning and Goal Setting, and Action Planning Participatory Monitoring and Evaluation. consists of 10 Modules to accommodate the new topic on School Gardens for Livelihood. It will be facilitated and coordinated by Dr. Blesilda M. Calub, University Researcher IV of the Agricultural Systems Institute, College of Agriculture and Food Science, University of the Philippines Los Baños (UPLB). Several resource persons will come from UPLB as well and the Kansas State University (KSU).
