WASH & Nutrition Project

One of the three core SHANTU projects

Evaluation of school gardens

Collaborations with Malawi community development team: created draft of school garden evaluation tool for Malawi context

Gain hands-on experiences

By active participation in school gardens in Taiwan. Visits to Xinzhuang Elementary School to learn best practices of urban school gardens in Taiwan through hands-on gardening experiences 

Strengthen environmental awareness

By providing valuable knowledge to school children and their community. Initiated communications with Malawi team and identified contacts for school gardens in Taiwan; bi-weekly to weekly internal virtual meetings to discuss progress 

The WASH team currently focusses on nutrition and environmental education through school gardens. The aim to develop a tool for the evaluation of school vegetable gardens in Taiwan and Malawi. After a number of existing diverse garden projects has been evaluated, new school gardens will be implemented in Taiwan concurrently with our partners implementing gardens in Malawi in 2022. This project will use best-practices to develop new school gardens based on a all systems approach, stimulating benefits for children, biodiversity and local communities.

This team mostly consists of international students from a diverse range of disciplines including global health, agriculture, geography and environmental education and we are looking for more team members with different backgrounds.

Student Learning Experiences:

  • Develop project evaluation tool
  • Tailor evaluation tool to fit Taiwan and Malawi context
  • Collaborate with multiple stakeholders from multiple disciplines
  • Design and implement nutrition education activities for Xinzhuang elementary students 

2021 plans

Learn best practises

  • Revise Malawi school garden evaluation tool based on feedback from Malawi Ministry of Health
  • Conduct school garden evaluation visits in 5 more schools in Taiwan
  • Share best practices for school gardens in Taiwan assessed during evaluation visits with Malawi team through virtual meetings
2022 plans

Implementation

  • Implement pilot nutrition/WASH intervention in Taiwan and Malawi based on results of 2021 evaluations
  • Evaluate impact of pilot interventions