The Context:
Hello we are a husband-and-wife team with 5 children at school in Mauritius and one overseas working. With the children and the caregivers at SOS Childrens Villiages and our family we are going to build a vegetable garden at SOS Childrens Village Bambous in Mauritius that has over 50 children living there. We own a family run organic fertilizer business that will supply all the organic fertilizer needed for the garden annually. 

Why we need support:
We need funding to buy all the farming equipment such as: shovels, rakes, wheelbarrows, hoses, irrigation pipes for drip irrigation systems, two water tanks, fencing, seeds, young fruit trees, organic herbicides and organic pesticides, 2 shipping containers one for storing equipment and one used as a site office and store for freshly picked produce, one fulltime gardener that has the experience and skills to teach the children about sustainable agriculture.  

The Plan:
The vegetable garden project aims at food self sufficiency for approximately 50 children and 20 adults.The project will be implemented in two phases. The planting of fruit tree all around the grounds of the village and the growing of vegetables eaten regularly by the children and the caregivers. SOS families will be involved in the growing of their vegetables and will learn from the experiences. The size of the vegetable garden will increase annually until enough food is grown for the children and caregivers.

All excess vegetables and fruit will be sold in a market stand locally and money from the sales will be used to expand the size of the garden and for new equipment. Once the vegetable garden is at its maximum size all excess proceedings from the vegetable stand will go towards the children's needs. A very small garden at the orphanage is already there and this will be expanded by many times the size eventually growing all the food required by the children.

Children that take a lot of interest in the garden project will be encouraged to learn as much as they can and should they want to have a career in sustainable agriculture we will offer them a scholarship for the 3-year sustainable agriculture degree at the University of Mauritius. 

OBJECTIVES OF THE PROJECT

(1) Provide high quality organic food full of healthy nutrients for the SOS families.      (2) Provide job exposure to young people that want to do sustainable agriculture as a career.                                                                                                              (3) Move towards food self sufficiency.

People can give us their email address and we will contact them with a newsletter regularly updating them on the progress. We want the children to become totally self-sufficient with healthy nutrient rich organic food.

If required, we will fund the 2nd year and supply all the organic fertilizer needed for the project and by the 3rd year we expect the garden to be able to fund itself with the excess organic produce sold at the market. The garden project will uplift the lives of the children at the orphanage with them all being involved as a community.

A big thank you to all people that donate money to the Orphanage Organic Vegetable Garden Project. We look forward to meeting you! 

Kind regards,       
Kim, Aurelie and family.