Funda Engadini - Learning in the Garden Programme

Lulamaphiko’s purpose is to enrich the lives of young rural children and contribute to their wellbeing. We want to see children who are living in poverty have the same opportunities as those who are better resourced and have access to the quality services needed for healthy development, growth and learning. The period from pregnancy to five years of age is when a child's brain develops more than at any other time in life. Good nutrition is essential for the brain to develop optimally and impacts positively on a child's ability to learn and to succeed throughout their life. Children’s early life experiences also have a significant impact on future success in relationships and work. It is critical to create safe, stimulating environments that are conducive to young children’s learning.

Through our Food Gardens and Funda Engadini programme we have worked with 29 ECD centres (reaching 2147 children aged 4 and 5 years) to: • increase knowledge about the environment, climate change and food security – by training and mentoring ECD gardeners, practitioners, and families to create and maintain food gardens using agro-ecological principles and methods. We provide essential resources such as shade cloth, tools, seeds and seedlings.
• build children’s relationship with the natural world – our nature-based curriculum for children to learn outdoors and in the classroom, using natural resources and recycled materials.
• improve children’s learning – by training and mentoring ECD practitioners to cover all the Early Learning Development Areas in the daily programme, and use the food garden as a living classroom.
• improve children’s health and nutrition in ECD centres – by supporting ECD centres to grow vegetables for children’s meals, providing nutritious porridge and information about the changing dietary needs of children (pregnancy to 5 years), affordable food choices and access to clinic services.