Meet Christopher!
November 12, 2015
Christopher lives about 1km away from the school in the midst of the beautiful fields of Amuru District, together with his wife and his eight children. The youngest one is only 3 years old. Two of them, Grace and Mary, attend Labala Primary School – Grace is in P7 and wants to become a nurse one day; and Mary (P6) dreams of becoming a policewoman. The family is fortunate to own an extensive amount of land (50-60 ha) and as Christopher works in farming and petty-trade, agriculture skills are very important for him.
Growing up in a farming background, he is happy to see his children appreciate the value of agriculture skills for their future, despite their different aspirations:
“The bottom line is they are all interested the same, even if they will get this profession, they still want to do farming too. They are interested, even currently, they are already taking part in the home gardens. So they are very interested to also participate in the club garden!”
Christopher’s oldest son, 21 years of age, has even decided to take up agriculture in his professional life, currently undergoing teacher training with a major in agriculture.
Additionally, only last year, Christopher realised the importance and value of farming, once again:
“When I was in Senior 2, I had a great passion for farming. I planted 12 Eucalyptus trees in 1992. Last year, this helped me a lot in paying school fees for my children. We cut eight stems and sold them off to pay the school fees – since then, I have seen the benefits of growing fruits and trees at home again, and I am not going to stop.”
Given this centrality of farming in his life, it is not surprising that Christopher was eager to seize the opportunity to acquire more agriculture skills. As Christopher is the PTA chairperson (Parents and Teachers Association), he was one of the first to find out about the project and was immediately motivated to mobilise parents to join:
Following the sensitisation, when they told us about the multiple benefits of this school gardens, including the benefit to the parents, to the pupils and also the benefits to the school – and based on the experience shared from other schools which had already benefited from this project, I took interests and said, I wanted to be part of this project – so that we can also divide the benefits from the project. There is especially one key thing that motivated me. It was that, after the parents have learnt the good practice from here, they will translate the knowledge and the skills home; and then they will apply it in their gardens; and then they will increase their production, and make food available for the household; and they will also be able to support the children with packed food to come to school!
Six months in, Christopher’s general impressions is very positive:
“I have seen that this programme is good, because it is linking the parents to the school. The project, it is going to empower the parents financially: it is going to create income for the parents – from the sale of the products of the garden, and also through the Village Saving and Loan Scheme, which is starting. So I am very happy, and appreciate this project so much, because the biggest challenges among the parents is the lack of money.”
Although Christopher is regularly visiting the school due to his position as the PTA chairperson, he still appreciates how the project has triggered a greater connection to his children’s education:
“The project has connected me very well, because each time the parents have they meeting, I come to school, and I am also able to follow whether they are in class, whether they have come to school and also when they go back home, I will also interact with them and say ‘today I was in your school for the parents gardens work’, so I am able to follow up with my children.”
And Christopher has also benefited from the project in a very personal way:
“Since I joined the group, I have appreciated and acquired good knowledge of planting in lines and I have also acquired the skills for making kitchen gardens, which I use to supply my home; and using a small piece of land to increase your production – which is a key knowledge I acquired and will be applying. I have also developed a passion for growing vegetables – I have planted 1/2 hectare of tomatoes! I also want to join the VSLA because it will help me manage my finances better”
Additionally, “After applying the knowledge, which I have acquired from the gardens, at home, it is also helping my family members to learn from the good practices and it is also increasing their production in the home garden.”
Today, Christopher has perfectly implemented the kitchen garden right next to his huts in order to provide his family with food, close to home. This is making a great difference for his wife, as she will now be able to make better use of their home-grown produce.
Additionally, thanks to his new skills and re-newed passion, his fields and his home garden are thriving! He was able to acquire several very favourable deals or even donations of seedlings, for mangos, bananas to eggplants, tomatoes and cacao. He is now trying to keep an eye on details and approaches his farming work with respectable planning. For example, he has brought the plantation of fruits closer to his residence, as a lot of it was stolen.
Booming with motivation and aspirations, he now has a very clear idea of how he is going to use his earnings from the SDG:
“I will prioritise on payment of school fees for the children, and then also I also want to save more money so that I can acquire a piece of land within the trading centre and built a structure, so that I can boost his business of petty-trade, of selling produce, because I am sure that in the coming year, his bananas will start producing. Plus I have other fruits too, so I want to get a place in the centre where he can sell.”
With his mind set and focused, Christopher is step by step turning his business idea into reality!
