When we spoke with one of our placement officers, she told us that we would be doing agricultural work in Botswana. When we received our invitation packet however, it was very vague about what we would actually be doing. Mostly it talked about HIV/AIDS projects that had nothing to do with gardening, agriculture or food. We were taken aback by our invitation packets and were worried that we wouldn't actually be using our skills in Botswana. The next day we called our desk officer to get more information about our projects and told her our concerns that we weren't going to be doing any agricultural work. After a long discussion it sounded like we would indeed be working with people to grow food. That was reassuring. We did have her send us our project descriptions so we could get a better handle on what we would be doing before we accepted the invitation. Below are our project descriptions. We are very excited about these projects. They seem like amazing opportunities to work with people to increase food security and promote healthy diets.
Matt:
“PC and the Government of Botswana have a mutual interest in increasing home gardens, both in numbers and productivity of those already existing. These Volunteers would be based out of village clinics or social and community development offices to promote vegetable gardening, fruit tree production, use of live fences, and nutrition education. Ideally, these Volunteers would have some background in these issues either through practice or formal training. They should be interested in teaching families as well as young adults about such activities. Their overarching goal would be to increase food production and improve health as well as improve community members’ understanding of nutrition and how to make healthy changes in diets.”
Bridgette:
“PC and the Government of Botswana have a mutual interest in increasing home gardens, both in numbers and productivity of those already existing. These Volunteers would be based out of nascent NGO’s whose biggest activity may be their garden project. They should be interested in teaching families as well as young adults about such activities. Their overarching goal would be to increase food production and improve health as well as improve community members’ understanding of nutrition and how to make healthy changes in diets. They may provide their host organization with better strategic vision and implementation advice for how best to run their garden project.”
