Planting Fruit Trees

Zahana was planting the first fruit trees way back in 2006 already. This webpage was created in 2006 :

Mango seedling

Future Mango Tree


Zahana had brought seedlings of fruit trees: mangos, orange, Loquat (bibasse), banana and papaya from a nursery in the capital to be planted in the school garden. These trees are hoped to built the foundation of many more
Fruit trees.


Children were asked to dig the garden around the school to plant the fruit trees. We made a nursery of flowers and when the school is built these flowers will be moved and planted around. It was there nice to see all kids participating in the work. I kept to telling them that this is for them that it would be nice to have a school with flowers and surrounded by fruit trees.

Walking off to the school gardenWalking off to the school garden2

Tools in had the children walk towards the future school grounds. (All Foto: Ramihantaniarivo 2006)

Digging the ground for the tree seedlingsDigging the ground for the tree seedlings 3

              

Digging the ground for the tree seedlings 4Digging the ground for the tree seedlings 2

Digging the ground for the tree seedlings 5

The children start digging 

Bringing in fertile soilBringing in fertile soil

Boy bringing in fertile soil ijn his shirt

Bringing in better soil for the seedlings

Tending the seedlingsTending the seedlings

Planting the seedlings.

Watering the seedlingsProtecting the seedlings

Watering and protecting the seedlings

Schoolgarden plotSchoolgarden plot 2

The futurure school garden (dug by the adults who joined in later)

One observation during this activity: Its easier to get young people involved than the older ones. When they see members of Zahana actively participating in the actions (not just communicating with the village via messengers), they become motivated to participate themselves. In the morning when we said: “lets go to dig the garden because you boys havent anything to do right now”, a few minutes later girls and boys already came running with their tools.