{"id":1949,"date":"2019-09-06T18:08:21","date_gmt":"2019-09-06T17:08:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.psncamboya.org\/blog2019pse\/?p=1949"},"modified":"2019-09-06T19:07:25","modified_gmt":"2019-09-06T18:07:25","slug":"vegetable-garden-project-plant-the-seeds-of-the-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.psncamboya.org\/blog2019pse\/blog\/2019\/09\/06\/vegetable-garden-project-plant-the-seeds-of-the-future\/","title":{"rendered":"Vegetable Garden project: Plant the seeds of the future"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

After a year travelling all around Europe, a former Summer Program monitor and her boyfriend decided to grow a new project for PSE. Indeed, Margaux and Engu\u00e9ran spent several months traveling from biological farms to autonomous communities and learnt the basics to cultivate a vegetable garden. Initiated to permaculture techniques (techniques according to which the association of different plants and vegetables actually helps each other to grow because of their complementary characteristics and needs), and already sensitized to volunteering, little by little it became obvious for them to couple these two.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

Growing its own vegetable garden allows one to increase its food independence, to feed itself better and to cultivate some personal improvements such as peace of mind, hand work culture and patience. <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Everything started with an observation that the two young Frenchs made during their trip: growing its own vegetable garden allows one to increase its food independence, to feed itself better and to cultivate some personal improvements such as peace of mind, hand work culture and patience. These are obviously benefits that anyone could look for, but they can become life lessons for children. Especially for children that are looking for life goals, children that are missing what would be considered as basic education in occidental countries, children that don\u2019t have families to teach them about independency, healthy food and work culture. \u201cGrowing a vegetable garden is also a form of education, learning how to work the land, how to well feed yourself. gardening is also related to a lot of personal benefits like work habits, tranquility, meditation\u201d, Margaux.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Recycling has been a big part of the teachings children got from growing this vegetable garden.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Pensionnaires have been highly motivated in helping out this project to be brought to life.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Margaux, who had volunteered during the 2018 School Continuity Program, wanted to come back with Engu\u00e9ran for the 2019 edition and both of them agreed they could bring something more by developing this gardening project within the summer programs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Planting and growing a vegetable garden is a long-run project, not only a 4 weeks-long one. <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s been a long process for them to arrive where they did this summer, and they first submit the project to the General Director of PSE. Indeed, planting and growing a vegetable garden is a long-run project, not only a 4 weeks-long one. Once they got her agreement, they talked about it to Marisa, the president of the School Continuity Program, then to the director of the Pensionnaires. The latter\u2019s involvement was essential for the project to be brought to life: without him, the project wouldn\u2019t be going to last longer than the summer program. However, he got very excited about it. Actually, growing a vegetable garden was already a topic of discussion on his side and with this already-existing-will to do it, the agreement and the motivation just followed, making it possible to become a long-term project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Margaux and Engu\u00e9ran received the support of Marisa as well as the help of the Pensionnaires and their Khmer monitors.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

To finance it, funds needed to be raised too and Engu\u00e9ran and Margaux first decided to run an trail in Norway to get some and then, they opened a crowdfunding kitty. They shared it among friends and families and the word of mouth spread it even wider, allowing the project to gather much more money than needed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Four weeks later, under the rains, the heat and the sun of Phnom Penh, salads, tomatoes, lemons and aromatic herbs already start to come out of the ground or to grow up on a land where they created everything from scratch. <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

To create this whole new vegetable garden they also needed the help of children who could take care of it later on so that they would consider it as their own project from the very beginning. The choice was quite easy and the project has been decided to be affiliated to the Pensionnaires\u2019 summer program. Indeed, \u201cPSE is their home so they will be the first for whom it\u2019d be interesting for it to be a success\u201d. Therefore, two times a week the older kroms<\/em> of the Pensionnaires\u2019 project, meaning kids from about 10 to 15, came to till the soil, saw bamboos, plant seeds and salads. They loved the idea and got really quickly motivated and involved in this new project: they were careful listeners to what they were told and extremely good at hand working. \u201cThey did great with nothing! We used scraps of kramas, plastic bottles, bamboos\u2026 Only materials that surround them to show them that we can do a lot by recycling what is all around them\u201d. Four weeks later, under the rains, the heat and the sun of Phnom Penh, salads, tomatoes, lemons and aromatic herbs already start to come out of the ground or to grow up on a land where they created everything from scratch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Four weeks later, under the rains, the heat and the sun of Phnom Penh, salads, tomatoes, lemons and aromatic herbs already start to come out of the ground or to grow up.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The biggest wish of Engu\u00e9ran and Margaux at the end of this summer is for the Pensionnaires and PSE\u2019s students to be able to take care of this vegetable garden for as long as they can. It has been decided than the pensionnaires will have a workshop there every weekend while the daily maintaining will be taken care of by the PSE\u2019s students studying in the building in front of where the new garden is located, lead by a botany teacher. \u201cThese children will later have families and when they learn now that a well planted and cultivated seed sprouts and gives vegetables, they learn about patience and autonomy\u201d.
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