Grace Amito?s visit to Canada earlier this year inspired her to further action within her district. While in Ottawa, she visited a local primary school to tell the children about her work as a radio broadcaster with Mega FM in Gulu, northern Uganda. One of the children, 10-year-old Ella Jackson-Cappuccino, said, ?It was interesting to hear about how radio in Africa helps farmers grow more food.? I liked hearing about her [Grace?s] radio station that she works at. It was interesting to hear how some small towns have one radio and get into groups and listen together, unlike here where we have thousands of radios.?
As a result, children and parents from the school Grace visited decided to raise money to provide radios where they were most needed. With the money raised, Grace was able to buy four radios. She gave one radio each to four of the largest schools in Gulu. The radios are large and powerful so that a group of up to 500 can sit and listen comfortably.
But Grace wanted to do even more for these schools. In Gulu, some schools have gardens, but students often view farming as a punishment. With this in mind, and inspired to promote farming amongst young people, Grace wants to produce farm radio programs for the students to listen to on their new radios. She hopes that, in the long term, students will see farming as a viable way to earn a living.
In the short term, students will benefit from a school farming and feeding project that Grace has begun working on. The project aims to improve the quality of school meals and enhance the effectiveness of nutrition and agricultural education.
In an email, Grace explained why the school farming and feeding program is so important: ?With rising costs of food, many parents cannot afford school lunches for their children. Yet when primary schools offer lunches, attendance by boys and girls from poor households surges. If a school can produce part of the meal, the costs are lower. Pupils can learn to grow crops, and then have the satisfaction of eating what they grow.?
She also mentions the difficulties involved in organizing a school feeding program: ?However, a major obstacle to a well-functioning school feeding program, particularly in an urban setting, is a lack of funding. Food usually has to be purchased at the market which is expensive.?
As a first step, Grace obtained Quality Protein Maize from the National Agricultural Research Organization. The maize was distributed among five senior secondary schools. She plans to distribute maize to six primary schools in time for the next planting season, which starts in August.
Grace is now starting to work on the farm radio component of the school program. She thinks a sponsor would help get things started. She hopes that ? as well as taking part in growing maize and eating it at school ? the children will be able to listen to programs on their school radios and learn the value of farming.
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