Calling All Schools to Enter The EduPlant 2018 Food Gardening Competition

Tell us your story!

Schools who have been growing and creating their gardens are invited to enter the EduPlant competition. There is R435 000,00 worth of prizes,  esources and funding for the winning schools. 66 provincial finalists will get a chance to compete at the Finals in October!

School food-gardens offer teachings about our food-system through outdoor education while building food-resilience in under resourced areas. For the past 24 years The EduPlant Programme has championed the promotion of sustainable farming through school-based workshops. Food & Trees for Africa, and its long term partner, The Woolworths Trust builds awareness around nutrition and eco-friendly food growing using permaculture techniques. These gardens supplement feeding schemes while educating learners on climate change, and natural vegetable production.

In the 1 st year,of the two-year programme, over 3300 participants from more than 2000 schools attended workshops nationwide. These  workshops were followed by 36 intensive clusters in every province every term. School participants, who have had this long term support, had this to say:

“We had started our food garden a few years ago, but I started to lose interest because we were struggling with the seedlings or seeds but since we have EduPlant our school garden is doing well. We want to thank Woolworth’s staff who came to our school to celebrate World Food day and donated tools, fencing, shade cloth and plants.”- Mr. David Monyobi, a community member from Rekgonne Primary School.

“EduPlant training has encouraged us to extend our garden. Our neighbours have also started a food garden because of what they saw at our school garden.”- Mr. Lehlohonolo Tsolo, community member from Unity Primary School.

This programme addresses the need to alleviate poverty and increase skills in relation to nutrition and growing food. By hosting a bi-annual finale event in Gauteng, the culmination of all this training will see the National EduPlant Competition in October 2018. Hundreds of schools enter to stand a chance to win a week away in the bush – learning about farming, nature and presenting their top-rated school food gardens to a panel of experts. The provincial judging will commence this July!

The closing date for ENTRIES is on the 22 of June 2018. All schools are encouraged to enter the EduPlant competition as they can win funding by presenting the Story of their Food Garden. To find out more, get in touch with Tshepiso on 011 656 9802 or visit the Food & Trees for Africa website: http://www.trees.co.za/programmes/eduplant.html