Seychelles Centennial Women Lions Club sponsors shade house at Baie Ste Anne primary school |16 July 2020

Baie Ste Anne Praslin primary school, the Eco-School champion, recently received a nursery shade house donated by the Seychelles Centennial Women Lions Club through the Ministry of Education and Human Resource Development.

The opening ceremony was held at the school’s garden in the presence of representatives of the Ministry of Education and Human Resource Development, the Ministry of Environment, Energy and Climate Change, teachers and students.

The handover of the shade house also coincided with ‘Sustainable Development Day’ and several poems and art work to commemorate the day were on display.

The 15m² nursery shade house has been operational since March 2020, but the opening ceremony was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It has already yielded several batches of lettuce, Chinese cabbage and other fruits and vegetables. It currently houses several plants amongst which medicinal plants and grafted fruit plants.

In the absence of the head teacher, the school council’s chairperson Michelle Dugasse thanked the donors for the donation which she said shall be highly beneficial to the school and the students and she highlighted the benefits of the nursery shade house.

“School gardening can be the start of a lifelong passion for our students. You get the satisfaction of watching something evolve from a tiny seed into a beautiful plant. Plants need sunlight to grow, but too much sunlight can however damage plants. This is why it is important for each garden to have a shade house. A shade house brings many benefits to agriculture; it improves light diffusion, ventilation, decreases heat for plants, minimises irrigation and fertilisation costs as well as provides the best growing conditions for plants,” she remarked.

According to Mrs Dugasse, they have noticed a significant decrease in absenteeism since the introduction of the school garden as students develop a greater sense of responsibility towards the animals and plants at the school garden. Students especially look forward to look after the animals and tend to their garden whose produce is marketed and sold within the school community to fund the continuity of the project.

The garden has also increased the enthusiasm of students towards Technical Enterprise (TE) classes and agricultural techniques and the addition of the nursery shade house will greatly help in making better use of garden space while producing maximum plants.

For her part, Dhana Sasikumar, chartered president of the Centennial Women Lions Club who was also the project coordinator, expressed her honour to be present for the first such donation on one of the inner islands’ schools after seven other schools on Mahe had been helped. Mrs Sasikumar praised the great coordination between herself and the school which she described as “excellent” and this rendered this project easily manageable.

“The Baie Ste Anne school applied for this donation as per their specific needs and submitted a viable project proposal plan to us through the Ministry of Education and Human Resource Development. As they met all the necessary criteria, we donated a sum of R10,000 which was used to fund the shade house. This project aims to help students in their social, academic and economic development as well as assist the school with its environment-based projects,” Mrs Sasikumar pointed out.

She noted that continuous monitoring will be undertaken to identify areas where the school may need further assistance to improve its garden. She also thanked the Ministry of Education and Human Resource Development for its valuable partnership.

During the ceremony, Selwyn Louange, a young farmer from the Baie Ste Anne community who is also one of the school’s very supportive parents especially towards the school’s garden, made a special donation of seedlings.

This donation has come at an opportune time now that the nursery shade house will provide better conditions for plant cultivation.

The donation has been gladly received and much appreciated by both students and teachers.

The accompanying photos taken by Romano Laurence show some of the produce for the Baie Ste Anne school garden.

Text: Nadia Bedier