A project introducing agriculture through an educational garden including farming, market gardening and food crops to provide career opportunities for deaf and dumb young people.
Sentebale was founded in 2006 by Prince Harry of England and Prince Seeiso of Lesotho. The NGO works especially for the AIDS orphans and more generally for children in vulnerable situations, and promotes their access to education.
Lesotho is a small landlocked country in South Africa, where 43% of the population lives below the poverty line ($ 1.25 a day) and more than 23% of the adult population is HIV positive.
St Paul school, is funded by NGO Sentebale, and is located in Leribe, at the northern end of the country. The school brings together children from 5-14 years old, all deaf and dumb, from rural and very disadvantaged backgrounds. St Paul offers these children the chance to get out of their isolation by teaching them sign language and offering them an education and a quality living environment in a boarding for several years. At the end of their schooling, the children return to their home villages and are being followed by the school for a professional integration.
The Ivory Foundation has set up an agricultural project in the field of the school. This is to create a vegetable garden, with plots cultivated by the children. The project also involves introduction to breeding farm animals (chickens, cows, pigs). The young people can acquire skills that will benefit them when they return to their respective villages.
This project also means to gain self-production (vegetables, eggs, milk, pork) for the school canteen. A young deaf former student of the school was hired to care for crops and animals.
A comic explaining the principles of permaculture in sign language will also be available to the young people of St Paul’s School.
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