Gardens promote independence and healthy lifestyles.
Numerous studies show that proper nutrition drastically improves student attention and performance. That's why during our early involvement at the informal settlement of Langbos, we supported a full healthy food program at the nursery school and were the primary funders for the enormous permaculture garden. Students learned to grow plants, tend them, and eat well, as the food produced showed up in the school breakfast and lunch programs and in community-wide soup kitchen dinners. The garden model was repeated, on a smaller scale, at Vusumzi Primary School, where children planted kid-sized vegetable beds and were then responsible for taking care of the beans, beets, cabbage, and spinach that resulted.