In June 2003 Milly Jarvis, together with a couple of Dutch ladies, started to make a vegetable garden at the Riversands Primary school after she saw that a lot of children attending this school are from the informal settlements of Zevenfontein and Diepsloot and are suffering.
There are approximately 700 disadvantaged children and 40 preschoolers attending this school, often having very little or nothing to eat for breakfast.
Three times a week they receive 2 slices of bread with jam at school via the government feeding scheme and for many of them that is the only food they have that day.
The project’s main objective is to supply these children with a cooked, nutritious and healthy meal every day so that they have the energy to listen and learn at school.
The latest brain research reveals that nutrition has a tremendous impact on the functioning of the brain and on children’s behaviour. The vegetables from the garden will be used for the meals and the rest of the ingredients will be bought and sponsored by suppliers.
The second objective is to teach a group of unemployed mothers how to cook healthy meals by giving them the opportunity to cook in the kitchen and at the same time to teach them how to make a vegetable garden, so they can make their own at home.
The third objective is to teach the children how to maintain and tend the vegetable garden, and to teach them that nothing in life is for free by requiring them to do odd jobs in and around the garden.
CLM would like to instill a good working ethos in these children.
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