Final week and reflections:

Well, these past four weeks have been quite a rush. We arrived in northwest Cambodia one month ago and had no idea what to expect of our experience living and working there. It took us some time to get acclimated (especially our stomachs) and learn our way around town. Our Khmer has remained very limited, so we mostly communicated with gestures and smiles. We felt warmly welcomed by everyone at CIDO and really enjoyed spending time with them. We celebrated the completion of our mission there with a small party with delicious food, drinks and the entertainment of dancing children.

During our last few days, Kyle compiled an interactive map using GPS coordinates and photos he and staff took of every school gate *visit the Green Shoots website soon for that update*

In addition, we began collaborating on our final evaluation which will include analyzing survey responses from about 15 schools.

On Monday, we had the opportunity to visit the Anjali House Center for Street Children in Siem Reap for the certificate ceremony marking the successful completion of garden training for about 20 students. The garden here has just been developed in the last year.

Some challenges they’ve dealt with are poor soil structure and fertility, since the soil was just filled in after construction. However, Anjali House students and staff are brainstorming strategies to improve for the next season. The students spoke great English and shared with us their experiences raising a crop and what they’ve learned. They are divided into about five groups- each overseeing a particular crop, such as eggplant, cucumbers, and tomatoes. Most of them are enthusiastic about continuing to grow vegetables and providing healthy food for all the students at Anjali House.

Overall, our work assignments challenged us and gave us purpose. We are very grateful for the opportunity to do meaningful work with a passionate team, and contribute in some small way to improving the health of people and the environment in Cambodia. We feel that the program goal of diversifying vocational skills of students and teachers is well underway and we expect to see continued improvement with each year.

We are very impressed and inspired by the scale and progress of the ASPUS project and are hopeful about its future impacts on Cambodian society.

We all need more reminders of the positive change people are making around the world, so stay in the loop to follow the evolution of the ASPUS program!

-Katie

This past week has been very full as we had 2 full-day trainings on Wednesday and Thursday with around 40 teachers total. We set up the first day in an outdoor covered space behind the CIDO office. We expressed our gratitude to teachers for the important work they’re doing to educate the next generation about growing food in an environmentally-responsible way, and thanked them for letting us visit their beautiful gardens. We are very grateful for Ratana being able to translate so much of our presentation into Khmer and provide copies to all of the teachers. We think it really helped them to understand better and have notes to take away with them.

First, Kyle lead a presentation on Integrated Pest Management, stressing the importance of prevention through maintaining healthy soil, and the various physical, biological and cultural (environmental) control methods. Sokphea, CIDO staff member, then explained briefly about the pests specific to the ASPUS gardens and how to manage them. We enjoyed some delicious baked goodies during our mid-morning “coffee break” including some fried doughnut-like snacks with banana, rice and other things inside.

After the lunch break, we held a brief discussion about the challenges in the ASPUS gardens including flooding, dirty water, animal intruders and running out of water and shared some solutions. Next, we launched into the Garden Education presentation that focused on teaching methods and specific lessons and activities. We discussed the value in student-centered learning, where teachers train students to develop critical thinking skills and find the answers on their own. And how working in the garden can improve students’ self-confidence, social skills and health as they are more likely to eat vegetables. I tried to emphasize how the garden is an opportunity for students to connect to the natural world, which is very important today since youth are becoming more immersed in technology (even in Cambodia). We took a mid-afternoon fruit break at a time when it was raining rather hard and we had to use a microphone for the teachers to hear.

Next, we presented the ideas of connecting the garden to lessons about nutrition as well as to academic activities in math, science (experiments), and creative writing through garden journals. We offered ideas of many different lessons with accompanying activities such as understanding soil composition, decomposition, germination, plant parts, “Plant Doctor” and seeds. We also suggested incorporating art, building projects and school grounds improvement into the garden activities. Overall, we received very positive responses from teachers and staff who are enthusiastic to experiment with these different lessons and broaden the scope of their garden training to students.

After the second day of our training was finished in Banteay Ampil, we took a tour with Ratana around the district visiting about 10 more schools to capture the GPS coordinates which Kyle is using to create a map.

We finished our week off with a final presentation to CIDO staff on Organic Standards (including ASEAN GAP Standards) and Best Management Practices.

As it was Friday afternoon, it was a little hard to maintain interest at some points. But staff were interested to discuss the effects they’ve observed from tillage (plowing) and are interested in experimenting with some no-till techniques, which we are thrilled about!

Today we’re celebrating the Royal Ploughing Ceremony in Cambodia. This national public holiday is celebrated yearly  in Thailand and Cambodia to mark the beginning of rice growing (rainy) season. Part of the purpose is also to hold prayer for a bountiful harvest. Read more »

Hello, my name is Katie Erwin and my partner Kyle Brolis and I have just begun our short mission with Green Shoots and their local partner CIDO in Samrong, Cambodia for one month. We’re here to learn about and evaluate the Agriculture Skills in Public Schools (ASPUS) Program as well as to provide training to CIDO on topics related to best management practices for organic agriculture.

Read more »

Patricia Cliff from Trish Travel Food, recently visited Green Shoots Agriculture Project in Cambodia and here is her blog about it. Originally posted on: TrishTravelFood Read more »