Home-based Gardening Program: A Quarantine Challenge
Lorna Gopez Sarmiento
The pandemic causes a serious problem in our economic that effects our life particularly the delivery of basic services. Our government is doing its best to supply and sustain the needs of the Filipino by giving Ayuda/ relief goods and we are grateful about this action.
As a government employee, being the school head of Bulaon Elementary School. I had this desire to be part of the solution in providing food on the table of very household. It may so sound impossible but with my heart that is full of hope and possibility. I believe that I can be vessel of blessings to my subordinates and my fellowmen.
And so, the Home-Based Gardening Program started last April 18, 2020 with three simple aims: help teachers to become more productive even during the quarantine period, produce more food, vegetables in particular, through gardening, and become a role model to its surrounding community in promoting a clean and green environment. To further motivate participants and widen the reach of the program, its nature was also made into a contest with promising rewards to its partakers by the end of it. With this, it is important to mention that its effectiveness was also backed by the Local Government Unit-City Agricultural and Veterinary Office (CAVO) headed by Chief Cristina Sangumay who provided seeds to plant and the City Environment and Natural Resources Office (CENRO) of the City of San Fernando who generously gave sacks of fertilizers.
As weeks passed after its launch, its progress became more evident. Weekly updates and checking were also done to ensure this. Until the end, the participants remained motivated and productive in their own backyards without exposing themselves to the risk of going against quarantine protocols. Truly so, this program raised a lot of benefits not only to the BES Faculty but also to the Bulaon Community. Everyone took steps closer to achieving food security in their homes as the program tended towards hitting the three core concepts of food security: availability (physical supply of food), access (the ability to acquire food), and utilization (the capacity to transform food into the desired nutritional outcome). In addition to this, all the three aims mentioned above, where successfully realized.
The program in cooperation with the teachers and community ended and underwent final evaluation last June 20, 2020 with a total of sixty-four (64) households who now have their own vegetable garden in their homes of which twenty-one (21) are BES Teachers for the School-based Category and forty-three (43) kabarangays for the Community Category.
As a closing note, it is always important to bear in mind that small actions may cause ripples of big and great effects in the future. Similarly, with this Home-based Gardening Program, what started out as a simple initiative of encouraging productiveness turned out to be a great and meaningful project that promote important things like food security and sufficiency in every household it has tapped. One can only wish that even though it has ended, the progress, success, and benefits of it shall be continued and so fervently maintained by those who started the movement. And then day by day, spread and encourage more people to jump in and be part of the great ripple effect.
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The author is Principal I at Bulaon Elementary School