ABSTRACT
The Farmer Life School (FLS) is derived from the Farmer Field School, a discovery-based learning strategy developed in the late 1980s in Southeast Asia. This chapter deals with a description of a case study, after which an assessment is made of the process and impact of the FLS as applied in Msinga. The FLS sessions helped the women of the groups to get to know each other better and created an atmosphere in which they could discuss and challenge each other’s perspectives. They especially appreciated sessions that included visualization, games, song and dance, observation and discovery-based learning. In 2003, a community-managed health centre in Msinga mobilized almost 150 people from poor and human immunodeficiency virus/Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome-affected households into garden groups to improve food security. Households are said to be more food secure when food availability, access to food, stability of food supplies and quality of food are in balance with each other.
