A boy surveys the food quality in his community

CANCHAQUÉ, Peru – Nicolás Rodríguez Julca dreams to be an agricultural engineer. He’s just 9 years old, studies in 5th grade Elementary at 14498 San Francisco School, and he’s the Environmental Chief. Adding the care of the place where he lives, one of his tasks is to promote healthy food habits among his classmates.

 

Currently, the school has stimulated the families to own orchards at their houses, so having more variety in food they consume.

 

Precisely, Nicolas’ job consists to visit these houses every week, to register the orchards status in a file: if the soil is already prepared, if it’s already planted, irrigated, removed the bad weed, or if it’s the harvest time. Based upon these results, Nicolás can give some recommendations.

 

Nicolás’ teacher Haydeé Choque sulco supervises the work, opines the boy is a leader along, as well as the orchard improves the social-environmental skills of the students. The vegetables cropped at the school and the homes complement the rations delivered by Qali Warma government programme, that provides complementary food to boys and girls.

 

Another achievement now is the kids know better what the nutritional contribution of consumed food is. So, they acquire a new learning and improve partially their life quality. Nicolás’ school is located at the countryside, 3 hours by road from Piura city.