Student-faculty team continues Belize project

Contact:
Ray Barclay, Bumpers College Global Studies Program
rbarclay@uark.edu

Feb. 11, 2008

Students participating in the St. Matthew's Sustainable Farm Project this summer include, seated from left, Raymond Jones, Lindsay Copenhaver, Jillian Harper, Amanda Simpson, Ashley Gatlin, Edison Froelich and Audrey McCoy; (not pictured are Brooke Jackson and Ashley Jones.) Standing are, from left, Laura Sossamon, Nilda Burgos, Jennie Popp and Misti Clark.

Students and faculty members will continue a service learning project in Belize this summer. They will continue work started last spring in Belize as part of a campus-wide project sponsored by the UA Honors College in collaboration with Peacework, a nonprofit international volunteer agency based in Blacksburg, Va.

Community Development in a Global Context: An International Service Learning Program, includes seven teams in the areas of literacy and creative writing, education, health, engineering, business, social work and agriculture. The goal is to help improve conditions in Belize's economically depressed Stann Creek District over a period of five years.

Associate professors Nilda Burgos, CSES, and Jennie Popp, AEAB, are faculty sponsors for the St. Matthew's Sustainable Farm Project to help students and volunteers at a rural school raise vegetables and other food products for use at the school.

Students participating this year and their majors include Edison Froelich, agribusiness; Audrey McCoy, art history; Amanda Simpson, agribusiness; Jillian Harper, agribusiness; Ashley Gatling, agricultural education; Raymond Jones, horticulture; Brooke Jackson, agribusiness; and Ashley Jones, agribusiness. Lindsay Copenhaver, crop management and environmental sciences, is assisting in the planning efforts, but will not join the team in Belize this summer.

Students at the for St. Mathew's Elementary School near Dangriga, Belize, work in the garden established last summer with help from Bumpers College students. Chile peppers have been harvested for several months for use in school lunches and as a cash crop to benefit the school. Another group will work in Belize this summer to help plant a variety of vegetable crops and on other projects.

Students at the for St. Mathew's Elementary School near Dangriga, Belize, work in the garden established last summer with help from Bumpers College students. Chile peppers have been harvested for several months for use in school lunches and as a cash crop to benefit the school. Another group will work in Belize this summer to help plant a variety of vegetable crops and on other projects.
Last summer's team, working with local people, cleared land for a pepper garden, planted the crop and helped arrange marketing. The students also taught science classes in the school.

Popp said last summer's work on the project was very successful, thanks in part to the participation of local volunteers and agencies in Belize. Peppers from the garden were harvested and marketed throughout the fall and into January.

This summer's team will renovate the garden and plant a variety of vegetables for use in the school, Popp said. She and Burgos are seeking funds to help provide a storage building for garden equipment and supplies.

The team also hopes to lay the groundwork that will allow the school to eventually raise pigs and chickens in addition to the vegetable garden, Popp said.

The project is scheduled for a total of five years. "Our goal is, in five years, to walk away and have the local people sustain the garden and other activities," Popp said.

 


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