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Who are we?

Feeding The Self is an innovative food security, education, and community development project. We started off in

university providing student support services and lecturing, before we realised that the problems in education were

much deeper down; students were not interested in what they were learning, did not know how to learn, and had

serious problems that needed to be addressed before they could concentrate, like not having enough to eat. In

response, we developed an integrated course that requires no resources aside from labour, land and seeds, adaptable

to any environment it might find itself in. We started from the idea that people need to see quick results, and to be

interested and social in their learning, and that without these, no project could sustainably succeed. We provide them

with what they need to expand the garden first around the school, then into their homes, then into the community.

After all, who needs advisors and experts when youve got an excited (and well trained) child?

What do we do?

We design workshops and courses that find simple, integrated and above all practical solutions to food security,

education, community development and environmental problems at schools and workplaces. We believe that solutions

to problems should be local and considered, and require no special resources other than those available on-location,

and adapt our projects and workshops accordingly. In an environment that often treats the underprivileged like the

incapable giving overly lavish encouragement and praise, lowering the bar, giving too much support we treat them

as if theyre capable, giving them the minimum equipment and maximum guidance they need, and they rise to the

challenge.

From our initial success, we realised that the market for these services is broad, and underpopulated; after all,

what better way is there to develop corporate culture than to run a project like this for the children of your workers,

workers, or at your office location? The core system is designed to operate in everything from one-off workshops for a

few people to connecting communities together through networked school gardens and activities. For example, in this

workshop, in four hours and by getting a dozen people who were expecting PowerPoint slides and paperwork to do

some actual gardening, we got them to change this space

into the one below, after which we chatted about what they could do at home and gave them everything theyd need

to start their own permaculture garden immediately.

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What makes us different?

1. We teach through activity instead of theoryAs engineers are fond of saying; if the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. Most school,

community, or food projects seek to address a single problem without considering the whole context. We show people

the need for tools and creative ways of getting around problems so they build their own hammers or garden beds,

fences, or class projects, as the case may be. Its about doing what you can, with what you have, NOW, and energising

the people around you through your own activity; showing and encouraging people to learn and plan instead of telling

them about it.

2. Our success in synergising the school, home, child, teacher and communityWe provided garden activities to the children and meet it with lesson plans and support material for teachers.

Instead of being extra-curricular, we teach the curriculum with the garden, and show teachers new methods through

advice and example instead of listing procedure. In one school, the pilot project led to a class average increase in

Natural Science of 34%, from 58 to 92. At both pilot schools, the size of the garden was at least doubled by on-site staff

over the course of the project. This doesnt include the area of gardens planted at students homes, with 72% of

students starting gardens at home (44/61. At all schools, teachers are often contacted by parents and community

members for seeds and more advice without any prompting, willing to look after gardens at home now they know the

children are involved; by focusing around the children, the project spreads naturally into the community.

3. An integrated donor modelRather than seeking donations for operating cost, we propose a new model; companies and donors pay for

personal and local services and items, such as running the project in the school their workers children go to, doing

environmental regeneration on their property, or building a roof garden and educating their workers in how to spread

it into the environment.

Its about making it easier to just get on with the job by hitting a lot of targets at once, such as CSI, c haritable

donations, skills developmentand worker education. We want to suggest a new model, where money is only spent

when you can see what weve done with it, unless it changes the lives of people directly around you for the better, in

which everything stays as local as possible and is under direct supervision and guidance.

4. The products of our labours are free to use, copy and distributeThe problem is those that need it cant afford it; those that dont, can. We want to put the two together; if your

kids go to an average private day school the cost of a years tuition would pay for at least two entire schools to be fed

sustainably.

We want to show people that, if we work together, we can radically reduce the need for money or external

services, and our own contribution to this idea is that everything we produce is available for free once weve made it.

All most people need is the encouragement and advice, and weve done the research so others dont have to, whether

its on the teaching, the gardening, or even on integrating activities into the community.

Chirag.patel@feedingtheself.org| 0749 031 332 / 0735 578 909

FTS garden & teaching docs| General teaching material |Gardening research|Useful NGO docs |Project data

All material free to use, copy or distribute

Donate athttp://apotheosis.givengain.org

Feeding The Self is a trademark of Apotheosis, PBO# 930038248

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