Telecom Vanuatu Ltd agrees to support Green Hands Garden

We were thrilled to have secured additional support for the Green Hands Garden project through a major Vanuatu corporate, Telecom Vanuatu Ltd (TVL).

TVL has agreed that all funds raised from their community event, Ultimate Survivor, will benefit the project and ensure more schools can be included in re-establishing their vegetable gardens.

We are very eager to support TVL to get this inaugural event kicked off with the community participating by having fun, building teams and supporting the post Pam recovery through the Green Hands Garden project.

I will be delighted to report on the results in the next post. 

Feature in Daily Post newspaper advertising the event and the support for Green Hands Garden project.

...absolutely blown away by the seeds of support - tankiu tumas :)

We have been absolutely thrilled with the support that our friends, whanau, family and friends of friends and total strangers from around the world who have donated to this post cyclone Pam rebuild project. The contributions have been very generous and we are humbled by your trust in us. We are super excited about the work to date and what has been achieved with our enthusiastic partners.

We continue to work with more schools as we identify their needs. It has become apparent that many school groundsmen (yes they are all men) have been motivated to have seed raising houses following the cyclone, and with Mr M being able to show them the basics they are gearing up to grow their own seedlings. We think that this is a great outcome to develop the sustainability of this 'seed'project.

So a very exciting and important development has happened for us over the past few weeks. Telecom Vanuatu Ltd (TVL) are holding a fundraising event on 4th July and will be donating the proceeds to the Green Hands Garden project - yay, double yay and triple yay! This means that we will be able to fund more seed raising house than we originally thought and therefore your generous donations will go further!

If you are keen to donate, the New Zealand Westpac bank account is still open. Details are:
03-0435-0343133-000.

"Tankiu tumas bigwan. Mifala glad lo saport lo olgeta."

A great big thanks. We are so grateful for everyone's support.

What a way to celebrate Environment Week

The changes we saw in students today was hugely uplifting - from when we all did the first garden and the students didn't want to get their hands dirty to everyone one of them eager to muck in this time around. We continue to work closely with our neighbourhood school to see what works, and what is of interest to them.

Our most recent foray included a class session during the schools Environment Week with the premise of encouraging the students to value their environment and using recyclable materials. So in preparation for the week, Mr M and Paul the groundsman made a new vegetable bed and the students cleared another garden, both ready for planting new seedlings. I worked with the Agriculture teacher on a new class resource and activities for the students.

Doing an awesome job to make 8 m2 of new garden.

D-Day arrived and we spent a very enjoyable morning with a class using the resources we had developed. The Agriculture Teacher, Mrs Pakoa engaged the class in a lesson on how seeds grow, what grows well in Vanuatu and interestingly we added a section on 'How to read a seed packet'. We have noticed that many locals are buying seeds rather than harvesting traditional seeds and crops. We think this is for a couple of reasons:
- traditional seed harvest is not widely practiced in the urban areas, maybe because of lost knowledge and
- growers are looking to purchase seeds for vegetables that they traditionally haven't grown, and often this is to grow and sell in various local markets.

Showing the students how to read these images on a packet so
they can help their parents do the same.

We provided Mrs Pakoa the resources and her excitement spread through the school with other teachers coming to see what the students were undertaking today. At the end of the class lesson I assisted the students to make small seed raising pots using recycled toilet rolls and Mr M helped the more adventurous with plastic bottle seed houses. Such an awesome experience, and I think the teachers learnt something too.

A list of vegetables that grow well in Vanuatu; how long their seeds take to germinate, and how long before the vegetables can be harvested.

Mr M with recycled plastic drink bottles and a bit of string showing
these boys how to make a class room seed house.

The students all planted bean seeds in their seed pot and put them on the window sill to watch them grow- about 30 bean seeds planted in total.


The next part of the lesson was to plant up the new vegetable garden with seedlings, so 40 x chinese cabbage, 5 x tomatoes and 4 x watermelon seedlings planted by the students, who where then given a newly design sticker for their enthusiasm and effort.

The girls showing great care in watering the seedlings before planting.

Students and Teacher all got a sticker for their
awesome contribution to a successful activity.

POSTSCRIPT: Mrs Pakoa said that the students loved their activity and that the toilet roll seedlings were in the ground within 10 days! And that she brought some lettuce seedlings from home to plant in the school garden as well.....Magic!!!

The day after the lesson Mr M and Paul also fenced off the vege gardens to stop the local chickens and dogs from scratching it up! Looks great, and the students can still see their veges growing. 

Next step - some vegetable recipes for the school canteen!