Villa Marcelo Garden Project

Villa Marcelo is a primary school, accessed by a sharp right turn off of the paved highway 25 minutes north of Urubamba. I had met Hector, the school's director and 5th grade teacher, at a meeting to discuss the agricultural project being implemented in his school. The next day we stood in the greenhouse built in the back corner of the grounds, staring at a one-square-foot hole dug into the earth. It took a minute for me to understand that the missing soil was a sample, sent to an agricultural lab. The results aren't so fantastic; a heavy coating of humous is needed before the anticipated strawberries or tomatoes can be planted.



The greenhouse is part of a larger project which has two interconnected target areas: education and health. It aims to improve academic performance and attendance by giving children lunches at school, and to improve the overall health of children and families through an increased understanding of nutrition.

Peru is ranked as one of the worst countries in the world based on educational performance. A staggering 85% of citizens between the ages of 18-45 lack a sufficient education for joining the skilled workforce.  Concerning nutrition, between 8 and 29% of children in Urubamba are chronically malnourished, and between 63 and 89% have iodine and/or iodine deficiency, which can cause a serious reduction in learning capabilities.

In an effort to combat these problems, students will participate in managing the school's garden and, in the process, learn the basic principles of healthy eating. The school lunches prepared with these products will provide an incentive for families to send their children to school and help the students to concentrate better in class. Pictured below are two fields owned by Villa Marcelo which, in conjunction with the greenhouse, will provide the project's food. In the field pictured on the right, corn planted in September has already broken the surface.


Participation from the community is necessary to transform the agricultural products into meals, but also to ensure that the nutritional lessons can be applied at home. Helping parents integrate healthy practices into daily routines means that younger children, in their earliest and most formative years, will also receive better nutrition. Parents will be invited to informative meetings and cooking classes, and mothers are volunteering to prepare and serve the lunches on a rotational basis.

In a nearby town a similar project was instigated by an NGO who, also recognizing the link between nutrition and education, wanted to pay to provide school lunches. Problems arose when other community members asked to be fed, and when the funding stopped the project disappeared. Villa Marcelo is determined to take a different approach. Prefacing the lunches with nutritional education, having students create their own food in a sustainable garden, and involving community members and families in the project are all means to ensure its longterm effectiveness.

After insisting I say hello to every class and taking me to look at the lunchroom (above left) where meals will eventually be served, Hector walked me to the school gate. Having rested at the end of the line, the bus was to ready to return to Urubamba.