Terrat Primary School Keyhole Garden Project Proposal

Terrat Primary School Keyhole Garden Project

Objective:  To build 6 keyhole gardens at Terrat Primary School to help provide vegetables for a school lunch program for the children.

Current Situation:  Terrat Primary School currently provides education for over 1000 students in a rural area outside of Arusha, Tanzania.  Facilities at the school are second-rate even for Tanzanian standards.  The floors are dirt-covered, ceilings unfinished, carrying sound from one classroom to the next and there are not enough desks or chairs for the students to sit in.  Students attend classes from 7 am to 2 pm, many leaving their homes at 6 am to make the journey to school. 

Most schools in Tanzania provide a basic lunch offering for students, but Terrat Primary School does not have the funding to purchase food for the kids.  The area around Terrat is a rural agriculturally-based community.  In years past, children would bring food grown at home for the school cook to prepare; however, over the past 3 years the community has experienced substantial drought conditions and almost all of the crops have completely failed.  Mothers gather to an area near the school grounds once a week to collect meager food rations from the government to provide their family with a daily meal in the evenings.  Because of the food shortage, students often go 8-10 hours during the day without food.  The lack of nutrition inhibits learning ability.

Assistance Plan:  The Green Living Planet (GLP) is working with the headmaster, teachers and parents of students at Terrat Primary School to improve the environment and soil conditions in the community.  GLP has already planted 183 trees with the children on the school grounds.  We are now hoping to build 6 keyhole gardens at the school that will help provide vegetables to prepare for the students for lunch.  A keyhole garden is an African-style garden that utilizes a central compost basket, which maintains nutrient-rich soil in areas of land where suitable soil is scarce.  You can see pictures of keyhole gardens we built at Good Hope Orphanage in Arusha, Tanzania on our website (http://www.greenlivingplanet.org/Current_Projects.html) or in the project video we have included.

 

Project Costs:

$640 - 8 Truckloads of Soil

$200 – 4 Truckload of Manure

$640 – 8 Truckload of Compost

$240 – 8 Carts of Grasses

$280 – Bricks for Garden Walls

$40 – Shovels

$40 – Buckets

$40 – Hoes

$60 – Vegetable Seed Packets

$2180 Total Project Cost

How GLP is Raising the Funds:  The Green Living Planet is partnering with friends we know who are teachers and/or educators.  The students at Terrat Primary School are optimistic, hard-working, and full of joy.  Ideally, this project will be centered on the students – kids helping kids!  We are hopeful that you will share the story of Terrat Primary School, the project video and assistance plan with your students.  Start a conversation with them.  Ask if they are interested in helping the Terrat students and find out what ideas they have to help. 

We are attaching a fundraiser “idea sheet” to help spark your creativity, but often the best ideas come from kids so ask them how they want to help.  Our goal is to have 10 classes commit to a goal of $100.  Please let us know by Wednesday, April 25, 2012 if you can participate.

All funds raised will be transferred through PayPal, unless you prefer to send them directly to Tanzania via Western Union.  Monies raised will need to be transferred by May 18, 2012 so that we have time to receive the transfer and purchase materials before the project date.

Any additional funds raised above the $1000 project cost will go to a fund started to have a well dug that will assist the local community and provide potable drinking water for the students.

Follow-up:  Throughout the building project, we will send photo updates to you to share with your class so they can see the difference they have made.  We will also post updates on the website www.greenlivingplanet.org as well post a video on our YouTube channel when the project is complete (http://www.youtube.com/user/TheGreenLivingPlanet).  If you’d like to send a picture of your class to share with the students at Terrat, please email it to info@greenlivingplanet.org.  With your permission, we will also post your class picture on the GLP website.

If you have any questions, please contact Rebekah Wilberg, our in-country fundraising coordinator at rebekah.wilberg@gmail.com or email The Green Living Planet directly at info@greenlivingplanet.org

On behalf of the students at Terrat Primary School, we can’t thank you enough!