The 2023 Food Security Capstone project group will soon formally launch the school-home-community food garden initiative for improving household food and nutrition security in Nigeria.
This was made known in a press release containing names of Mrs Olaoluwa Makinde - the Lagos Team Lead of the group and Mrs Lizzy Igbine - the Abuja Team Lead.
The release cited that the Food Security Capstone students of the School of Politics, Policy and Governance (SPPG) - an affiliate program of the Fix Politics initiative based in Abuja disclosed that it will officially launch their capstone project titled ‘Operation Feed My Family’ on Wednesday, 28th June 2023 at the Delight International School, Oloodi-Apapa in Lagos.
According to the release, "Operation Feed My Family’ is a theme programme developed in line with the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) launched a programme to build Green Cities as a way to combat Food Insecurity as evidenced at the onset of the Covid 19 global pandemic, especially across cities.
It added: "Operation Feed My Family’ is expected to help school children engage around growing commonly consumed fruits and vegetables in schools, and encourage them to replicate the same in their homes and communities with
necessary support."
It noted that program would encourage nutrition-sensitive agricultural production and motivate associated learning
and nutrition education among participating schools, families and communities.
"Another important component of the project is the ‘trash to treasure’ concept of the project to promote
utilisation of used plastic, tyres, buckets and other discarded bases as planting media thereby encouraging environmental consciousness among the growing student population.
"Operation Feed My Family’ is collaborating with the Delight International Secondary School, Olodi-Apapa Lagos State and the Government Secondary School, Wuse, FCT Abuja, to realize the initiative," the release emphasized.
In the words of the Lagos Team Lead of the project, Mrs Olaoluwa Makinde, “We are working with students and
the relevant staff of the schools to demonstrate our concepts of urban and community-based farming."
She recalled that the School of Politics, Policy and Governance (SPPG) is an unconventional school designed to attract, develop and produce a new generation of political leaders committed to advancing sustainable multi-sectoral development in Nigeria.
As part of the SPPG school program curriculum, the students are to complete a community-focused capstone project in several areas anchored on the SDG goal, which Food Security is.
The Capstone projects are
vehicles for students in the program to initiate and provide meaningful contributions to areas of their interest within defined local communities.
“Our group is working on one of the Sustainable Development Goals – Zero Hunger. Our particular interest is to create awareness, stir up interest and catalyze simple actions that can contribute to improving individual and
household food and nutrition security”, Mrs Olaoluwa Makinde further stated.
The project is estimated to cost over one million naira in direct cost to execute in the two selected schools.
Activities of the Food Security Capstone group can be followed on their Social Media handles:
Twitter: @sppg food security
Instagram: @sppgfoodsecurity
LinkedIn: sppg-food security
Mrs Olaoluwa Makinde - Lagos Team Lead (08029544801; olaoluwasmakinde@gmail.com)
Mrs Lizzy Igbine - Abuja Team Lead (08034106448; lizzy.igbine@gmail.com).
