Self Subsistence: an Own Garden with Green House

Vegetables are rare in Dolpo due to the harsh climate. They need to be imported and are expensive. This is why the Tapriza School, in cooperation with women's groups and parents, established an own vegetable garden.

Every year the parents donate the seedlings which are planted by the students and cultivated during the lessons in ‘environment and nature’. Cabbage, pumpkins, cauliflower, beans and radish flourish and enrich the meals. Additionally, apple trees were planted on the school compound and add important vitamins to the nutrition of the students and staff. Thanks to the green house even tomatoes and chillies grow.

By now the school has so many vegetables that barely additional vegetables have to be bought in the market. At present the home-grown vegetables cover 80-90 percent of the requirement for students, teachers and staff. The parents followed the building of the green house with great interest and have now established some themselves in the villages to enrich the nutrition. Vegetables and farming methods which succeed through innovative cultivation at the school and are so far not common in the region, have become role models. Gladly the new vegetables are adopted into the local farming and food culture.


 
The school garden



The apple trees in the school garden

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