Garden of Hope

The Garden of Hope  is a side project of the School of Hope located in Jocotenango, Guatemala. The School of Hope is run by the Education for the Children Foundation, an international NGO that provides a quality eduacation and variety of wrap-around services for over 500 underprivildged children in the community of Jocotenango (more information http://www.eftc.org.uk/).  Children at the School of Hope come from a variety of compromised and underpriviledged backgrounds. The majority suffer from a variety of forms of abuse, neglect and malnourishment in their homes. 

The Garden of Hope started as an after school program at the School of Hope and is now a regular class that takes place during the school day.  The program caters to children of a variety of ages and ability levels and serves a variety of purposes to the community of Jocotenango. In the Garden of Hope children have the opportunity to experience the outdoors in a safe and clean environment which is extremely difficult to come across in this community. Participating children learn how to grow their own organic vegetables, they also work with a professional nutritionist, local horticulturalists and local artists to further enjoy the beautiful outdoors and the fruits of their labor. 

When it comes time to harvest in the Garden of Hope, we either eat our own food or sell it to the community. The funds that we receive from our veggie sales go toward the kitchen at the School of Hope which provides the kids with 2.5 meals daily. We are not yet producing enought to make a significant contribution to what the kitchen needs for it's daily mass meal making (over 500 meals!). Instead of providing the kitchen with produce however, we provide them with resources/materials that they see as important but fall outside of their limited budget. Last year, for example, we bought them 3 fans to help keep the flies off of the childrens food. 

Participants in the Garden of Hope are given an opportunity to learn outside of the classrom and receive more individual attention. They get their hands dirty, they learn experientially, they become part of a team and find a sense of purpose from their hard work. We highly value the importance of the content that they learn in regards to the science of growing their own food but we also make sure that they see the garden as a safe and joyful environment. 

Want more information? Check out our blog! https://gardenohope.wordpress.com/