Junior Farmer Field Life Schools in Namibia

By Kiwan W Cato, FAO Namibia
Kiwan Cato was introduced to the JFFLS initiative while serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer Leader in Northern Namibia, 2005. In this capacity, he trained teachers and assisted communities in developing income-generating enterprises, such as vegetable gardens, bakeries and craft markets. Kiwan holds a B.A. in English and a Masters in Secondary Education and his experience with teaching/facilitating methodologies and psychosocial support methods has been valuably applied in the JFFLS Programme.
Challenges

These are hand tools given to the orphans when they finish the one-year programme
The experiences shared here draw on work with FAO in the communities of Endola, Ondobe, Etombe and Oshandi in Ohangwena Region of North Central Namibia, and with some early lessons from Caprivi, where the schools are just starting. The work in Northern Namibia started in 2004, although background research began here back in 2002-2003 that led to the schools as a mitigating strategy against the impacts of the HIV/AIDS pandemic.
The Junior Farmer Field Life School (JFFLS) is a project that relies heavily on the commitment of human, physical, and social resources. The most challenging aspect of implementing a JFFLS is making sure the site is appropriate. Effort is made to link the JFFLS to existing structures within the community, and that can be easier said than done. The obstacles we have encountered in the Namibia pilot of the programme and expansion and the relevant lessons learned all relate to initial planning - the first and arguably most crucial of the nine 'Getting Started' steps in the implementation process. Within this first step, the project team is charged with inspiring the community to identify, manage, and control the JFFLS environment, simultaneously building interest, partnership, ownership, and commitment for effective implementation.
Some of the key challenges we have faced in implementation of JFFLS have been:
- Selecting a site that affords the JFFLS School the opportunity to effectively accommodate and manage ventures.
- Mobilising the community and encouraging them to not only take interest in the project, but also be prepared to take over the project following withdrawal of outside support.
- Establishing a network of resources (material/human) to aid facilitators in their weekly endeavours.
- Training facilitators in working with children and identifying their individual needs.
- Retaining facilitators who understand the JFFLS approach and are committed in their interest of participating in the school.
- Balancing participants' household/formal school responsibilities and JFFLS tasks.
- Obtaining a balance between sharing agricultural skills and life skills knowledge as well as ensuring their integration.
- Documenting the progression of the project and keeping all stakeholders abreast of changes in schemes of work, new initiatives, setbacks encountered, and areas where additional support is desired.
- Establishing a reliable and affordable water access for the JFFLS agriculture field, and preparing for the withdrawal of WFP food support.
- Supporting children and identifying their emotional and physical needs.
- Dealing with the stigma and discrimination children affiliated with the JFFLS may experience.
- Fostering an environment of gender equality.
- Gaining feedback from children, facilitators and the community (i.e. JFFLS successes, failures, concerns, etc.).
- Introducing the community and children to the links between nutrition and infection(s).
- Expanding the project beyond thirty participants
Lessons learned

This building houses a chicken and a guinea fowl coop, as well as a space for rabbit rearing, all part of the JFFLS training programme.
The community must agree on what will work well given the local circumstances (i.e. agroecosystem, preferred foods, water availability, livelihood system, possible income-generating enterprises, etc.). Community discussions should focus on what sorts of activities community members feel boys and girls can take on, keeping in mind labour requirements, cost effectiveness, nutrition, length of crop rotation, types of plants, livestock production cycles, marketing opportunities, and agro-ecological and climatic factors. The project should not be launched until these matters are fully understood, examined and identified by the community. It is very easy to slip from an interactive participatory approach into a consultant participatory routine.
It is important to listen to community members who have knowledge of grazing patterns, disease prevention in livestock, local varieties of nutritious foods, health and life skills. In order to identify these individuals, it is important to use gender-sensitive participatory methods in community meetings. Using the knowledge already present in the community effectively links individuals to the project. Using community members during the training of facilitators and fostering a relationship with members prior to the launch of the project are vital.
During training, facilitators need to be encouraged to seek out individuals and organisations in the community that are already experienced and active, to aid them in areas they are not comfortable facilitating (e.g. agricultural skills, life skills topics,). It is often difficult for individuals to reach out and request assistance from others. During the pilot phase the project team needs to work closely with facilitators and the community, in composing a network system. This requires much hands on involvement from the coordinators.
Each boy and girl requires numerous kinds of support from his or her social environment. It is unrealistic to believe that facilitators can address all of the issues experienced the children. However, we can train facilitators on how to identify the problems their boys and girls are facing and provide them with a network of organisations that can aid them in helping the child.
With the experience facilitators gain in working with the JFFLS, they often come to realise their enhanced marketability and seek employment outside of the community. This can be a setback as new facilitators are brought in that are not familiar with the JFFLS approach. It is imperative that a term of agreement is designed for facilitators to clearly inform each of his or her responsibilities and length of service.
The JFFLS should not be an additional responsibility that adds to the already intense schedule of children. The community needs to identify a clear timetable and realistic workload as part of the JFFLS. This requires facilitators and the JFFLS management committee to keep the community (at large) abreast of activities, taking into consideration formal school calendars and involving participants households in activities, etc.
Life Skills needs to be incorporated and linked to the agricultural cycle. Having a Peace Corps Volunteer attached to the project has been a valuable resource for the community. The volunteer has been able to aid in preparing facilitators and the community to address sensitive issues with the participants, which otherwise would have been neglected. This has strengthened the success of the JFFLS in terms of passing on agricultural knowledge.

Pilot two hectare field where FAO held the first school for the orphans, using the drip irrigation scheme and hot peppers.
A monitoring system must be designed to inform stakeholders of relevant changes in the scope of the JFFLS. During the pilot phase, the project team needs to have a system in place that captures changes, issues, and lessons learned that can be addressed. The coordinators need to be actively involved in all aspects of the project. The pilot phase should be seen as the time to work with the community in mastering the management requirements. The community cannot be left to continue without face-to-face communication with coordinators for weeks at a time.
To maximize the production efforts of the boys and girls participating in the JFFLS, an adequate water supply is key. This might entail sinking bore holes or buying into existing water supplies, but any costs for such water supplies should be covered by surplus production or other funding sources. With expansion, the project team must look at the possibility of establishing one vegetable garden that supports the feeding programme and another area, which would serve as the area where JFFLS participants receive their agricultural practical skills training.
Facilitators need to be introduced to psychosocial support methods and be able to recognise needs of boys and girls. (If the need for food or shelter are not satisfied to some degree, one can not worry about other needs, such as the need to be loved, respected or successful).
During community entry and mobilisation, discussions should be held about stigma and discrimination and the community civic responsibility to aid the children of their community. Again, if the initial planning and mobilisation of the community is not rushed, these issues can be address prior to moving forward. It has been our experience that the main cause of participants being stigmatised or discriminated against is linked to the community at large not being aware of the project needs and objectives.
In developing curriculum for the JFFLS, the community should be encouraged to ensure that boys and girls approach JFFLS responsibilities equally. Life skills topics should be shared with all participants and not altered to suit boys or girls.
Boys and girls should be encouraged and provided with a 'learning journal'. The journal will serve as a reference for them to document significant lessons learned for the day and their experience with the JFFLS. The main idea behind the journal is to allow the children to share what they feel they are gaining or not gaining from J Hourihan the project. The journal provides a medium for alternative expression.
The importance of meeting immediate food, nutrition and other basic needs will be shared with the community and boys and girls of the JFFLS. The school curriculum will provide information on nutritional care and support for people living with HIV/AIDS. It is important to ensure that the community understands that the agricultural production is primarily geared to benefit the children and their households, before marketing of crops can be considered.

Expansion of this approach has to be cautious. Following the pilot, the community may be unable to make food provision for more than thirty participants without exhausting and stressing community resources. It is suggested, throughout the programme, that not all facilitators need to be present at the same time. Thirty participants is a full work load in itself, additional numbers leave the facilitator managing crowd control rather than sharing knowledge. This is in line with a JFFLS principle of fostering an environment where each child receives individual attention according to his or her needs - an element absent in their formal school experience and often in children's households as well.
The JFFLS approach is one that aims to address the needs of children living in areas heavily affected by HIV and AIDS. Children, even those with aspirations beyond farming, come to realise that the farming skills acquired enable them to provide for their families and themselves and to meet household food security needs, while the acquired life skills lay the foundation for them to make more informed decisions regarding their lives.
For further information, contact: Kiwan Cato, email: kiwancato@hotmail.com and James Breen, FAO, email: James.Breen@fao.org
More like this
FEX: Junior Farmer Field Life Schools in Namibia and Swaziland
Entrance sign to one of the JFFL Schools Thanks to James Breen, FAO Regional Emergency Agronomist in South Africa, for coordinating the production of this field article, John...
FEX: Starting up JFFLS - Observations from Caprivi region, Namibia
A group of children (OVCs) at Lusese school who are looking forward to the JFFLS starting. By Marie McGrath, ENN This article is based on interviews by ENN with Patrick...
FEX: Issue 29 Editorial
There are two major themes running through this issue of Field Exchange. The first is a focus on Southern Africa and the programmatic challenges presented by HIV/AIDS and the...
FEX: Adolescent Girl Power Groups in Bangladesh: Placing gender equality at the centre of nutrition interventions
View this article as a pdf By Melani O'Leary, Asrat Dibaba and Julius Sarkar Melani O'Leary is currently a Nutrition Technical Specialist at World Vision Canada and has over...
FEX: Growth through Nutrition: The Adolescent Nutrition SBCC Program in Ethiopia
View this article as a pdf Save the Children (2019). Documenting Research on the USAID Growth through Nutrition Activity Adolescent Nutrition SBCC Program: Outcomes and...
FEX: A boy’s story from Swaziland
By Hlengiwe Nsibandze, FAO Swaziland Like all sub-Saharan countries, the adverse effects of HIV/AIDS are undermining the future social and economic success in Swaziland....
FEX: Results and lessons learned from WFP’s efforts to support adolescent girls in Niger
By Alexandra Pirola, Benedict Tabiojong Mbeng and Mica Jenkins View this article as a pdf Lisez cet article en français ici Benedict Tabiojong Mbeng is Head of...
FEX: Assessment of adolescent girl nutrition, dietary practices and roles in Zimbabwe
Amelia Reese-Masterson and Pamela Murakwani Amelia Reese-Masterson has been with International Medical Corps since November 2011 as Research Advisor in the Nutrition, Food...
FEX: Mainstreaming nutrition in a school-based feeding programme in northeast Nigeria
By Greg Sclama View this article as a pdf Lisez cet article en français ici Gregory Sclama is an Assistant Professor of International Development and Economics at the...
NEX: School feeding: experiences from Somalia
Abdikadir Issa Farah Mr. Abdikadir Issa Farah is the Programme Manager of Formal Education Network for Private Schools (FENPS). He has been working in education in emergencies...
FEX: The Triple Threat: Southern Africa’s emergency behind the emergency
By George Aelion, WFP A Junior Farmer Field Life School site in Swaziland, one of five pilots started in 2006. George Aelion is Senior Regional Programme Advisor, with the...
FEX: Commentary: Regional Training on Integrated Management of Severe Malnutrition
By Ann Ashworth and Steve Collins WHO and UNICEF came together in Tanzania in September 2006 to hold a joint training on the Integrated Management of Severe Malnutrition. The...
FEX: “I’m courageous”: a social entrepreneurship programme promoting a healthy diet in young Indonesian people
View this article as a pdf Lisez cet article en français ici By Cut Novianti Rachmi, Dhian Probhoyekti Dipo, Eny Kurnia Sari, Lauren Blum, Aang Sutrisna, Gusta Pratama...
FEX: Sectoral integration ‘on the cheap’ with cash based programming
By Holly Welcome Radice Holly Welcome Radice has worked for 15 years in food security programming in Africa and Latin America. She was the Head of Food Security and...
FEX: Promoting youth leadership on nutrition through junior parliamentarians and junior council engagement in Zimbabwe
View this article as a pdf By Progress Katete, Kudakwashe Zombe and Dexter Chagwena Progress Katete is a United Nations Volunteer Nutrition Specialist at UNICEF. She has...
FEX: Experiences from implementation of a school-based nutrition programme in Wakiso District, Central Uganda.
View this article as a pdf By Lorna B Muhirwe, George K Kiggundu, Michael Nsimbi and Maginot Aloysius Lorna Muhirwe is the head of health and nutrition for Save the Children...
en-net: Reaching out of school adolescents
Is there anyone implementing programming for out-of-school adolescents, and if so, what are they doing and are there any particular successes or challenges being faced? WFP...
FEX: Editorial
View this article as a pdf Apart from the thematic focus on MAMI1 in this 58th issue of Field Exchange (see dedicated editorial that introduces the section on page 50) we...
NEX: Editorial
We are delighted to share with you Issue 5 of Nutrition Exchange. In keeping with our aim to have the majority of NEX content written by national actors engaged in nutrition...
FEX: An integrated multi-sector approach to improve the nutritional status among school-age children and adolescents in Malawi
View this article as a pdf By Doreen Matonga, Keisha Nyirenda, Jason Chigamba and Dalitso Kang'ombe Doreen Matonga is a Communication for Development Specialist at UNICEF...
Reference this page
Kiwan W Cato (). Junior Farmer Field Life Schools in Namibia. Field Exchange 29, December 2006. p18. www.ennonline.net/fex/29/lifeschools
(ENN_2207)