OnePlate’s second program, the ‘Tacloban Project’ sponsored 120 poor families to start their own vegetable gardens and learn the latest in agricultural farming.
In the upland, hilly area of Tacloban City live some of the poorest farming communities. In 2013, Typhoon Haiyan devastated the city, and food production remains poor to this day. The community is barely able to grow enough to survive. One of the main problems here is availability of seeds and a lack of expertise in growing urban gardens.
For this reason, OnePlate sponsored the ‘Tacloban Project’, a five-week training session in organic agriculture, equipping the residents with the skills and the tools to start their own fruit and vegetable gardens. It teaches the locals how to produce fruits and vegetables so the children can not only break out of the cycle of poverty but eat good and nutritious food.
For many of these families they only had enough money to feed their children some bread once a day. Now after the training program equipped with the with the skills and knowledge these families are empowered to grow their own food to feed their children.
The five-week course commenced in June 2017 with four programs of 30 participants, totalling 120 people, mostly women and young people.
They were given seeds, tools and were taken through the ‘how-to’ of running their own fruit and vegetable gardens. Topics ranged from agro tourism and high value vegetable production to budgeting, organic fertiliser and pest control.
The group was also taken through the benefits of agricultural recycling, and learned how to use plant and animal waste, and were even introduced into the basics of worm farming.
The ‘Tacloban Project’ provided so much more than just the basic ability of growing more fruit and vegetables.
The participants were given new skills, new knowledge and encouraged to develop adaptable, entrepreneurial thinking.
It was particularly exciting that the majority of participants were women as the knowledge will be passed on to the community and to the next generation.
Initiatives like the ‘Tacloban Project’ ensures that there is just not food for the next day, but makes the community more resilient to crisis, providing a hopeful future for their children.
To read more about the Tacloban Project please click here.
