Don't Just Give Them Food-Teach Them How to Get It

Learning how to grow your own food is the first step to ending hunger. At the Live and Learn in Kenya Education Center in Nakuru, Kenya the children are not only learning reading, writing, and arithmetic - they are learning how to take their lives into their own hands and to grow into strong, self-sufficient, and self-confident adults. Our teachers begin teaching the children how plants grow and how to plant, weed, water, and harvest them from kindergarten to 8th grade. They learn how far from each other the different plants must be planted, how to look for parasites, and how to keep the plants healthy. Once their treasures in the school garden are ready for harvesting, they learn how to harvest in a way that the plants aren't harmed so that, for example, green vegetables can go on growing after the harvest. The joy of watching their plants grow, harvesting them, and then after the mamas have cooked them in the school kitchen, eating the vegetables and legumes - and watching the other children enjoying them as well. These are not only lessons for life - they are lessons that can save lives!

We are still hoping to be able to buy farmland so that we needn't pay for the 3 acres of land that we must rent. Having our own farmland will not only save the money we must pay for rent - it will make the Live and Learn in Kenya Education Center more self-sufficient and independent.

Thank you so much for your kind support - Asante sana!

Not only the parents must learn to grow crops and care for animals - so must their children! It is a community responsibility that every parent of Live and Learn in Kenya International school children take part in community service. All of the mothers take turns in groups to cook and clean the kitchen and dining hall. All parents take part in preparing the fields, planting, weeding, and harvesting - drying the grains and corn and grinding them into flour. Those are adults' jobs! The children are there to learn and play and enjoy life - a life that should be filled with sweet hours of joy and fun - creativity, imagination and, amazement.

But the children must also learn how to one day take care of themselves and their future families - and that entails learning how to prepare, plant, weed, and harvest their small crops in our school garden - how to take care of animals like cows - and how to cook what they have grown and cared for!

We usually just go to a supermarket to buy our food - take it home and...if you are like millions of westerners - put it in a microwave oven and wait for the bing! That's now what life is like for millions of people in Kenya. They must learn to work for their food and prepare their meals - which is a much healthier way of life in the broader picture anyway!

Thank you for helping us help the children to learn how to work for their food!

We hope to raise funds to buy a field in the near future so that we won't have to pay the expensive rent for a field.

ASANTE SANA NA UBARIKIWE!