A Scoping activity for the School Edible Landscaping for Entrepreneurship (SEL4E) Project has been conducted in the Province of Rizal for 11 schools from seven municipalities to start home and community gardening projects this month.
Visiting the said school were key staff of the Southeast Asin Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture's (SEARCA) Research and Thought Leadership Department (RTLD) and Training for Development Unit (T4DU), the Office of the Provincial Agriculturist of Rizal, and the Department of Education Schools Division Office of Rizal.
SEARCA Director Glenn Gregorio said the SEL4E is an offshoot project of SEARCA's prior project titled, "A Participatory Action Research on School and Community-based Food and Nutrition Program for Literacy, Poverty Reduction, and Sustainable Development."
Gregorio said this prior project is also known as the School-plus-Home Gardens Project (S+HGP) which was piloted in Laguna from 2016 to 2017.
He said the project aims to scale out the SEL4E model through multi-stakeholder participation in improving the nutrition and health of children and their families.
During the visit, Gregorio said the project's objectives, and interventions were presented to the public school district supervisors (SDOs) and school heads.
A scoping interview was facilitated by SEARCA with the said 11 schools, namely Malaya Elementary School and Virgilio B. Melendrez Memorial Elementary School in Pililla; Bagumbong Elementary School in Jala-jala; Tanay-Sampaloc Integrated National High School and Sampaloc Elementary School in Tanay; Baras Elementary School and Baras National High School in Baras; San Guillermo Elementary School and Tomas Claudio Memorial Elementary School in Morong; Pantay Integrated National High School in Teresa; and Tuna-Balibago High School Annex in Cardona.
Gregorio informed that project activities are set to start this month with the development of the project's implementation guide, training modules and other learning materials specifically relevant to home and community gardening.
For the project implementation, funds were provided by SEARCA and the Synergy Group Operations Inc. (SGOI) in partnership with the Provincial Government of Rizal, DepEd SDO Rizal and Pilipinas Shell Foundation Inc.
SEARCA and SGOI are expected to produce a cadre of trained and committed technical staff from municipal and barangay levels and teachers and school heads to sustain and scale up the implementation of the home garden component of the SEL4E.