ABSTRACT
This chapter will describe the School-Plus-Home Gardens Project (S+HGP), which emphasizes the promotion of greater parent engagement to establish home gardens and to involve them better in school gardening as a way of sustaining nutritional gains. Under the nationwide School Garden Program and the School-Based Feeding Program (SBFP) currently being implemented by the Department of Education in the Philippines, 62% of severely wasted and 70% of wasted children beneficiaries attained normal nutritional status at the end of the 3-month feeding period. However, 9 out of the 14 schools surveyed had repeat beneficiary pupils from the previous year’s SBFP (36–38%), and 14% had been SBFP repeat beneficiaries for three consecutive years. These were due to lack of food in the homes during the rest of the year, severe illnesses, and parents’ attitudes and values. In addition to promoting greater parent engagement to establish home gardens and to involve them better in school gardening, other activities were initiated for values strengthening so that parents improve their sense of responsibility in ensuring year-round availability of diverse, nutritious food for their children. Factors that contributed to the success in engaging parents included regular joint parent-teacher consultations, participatory development approach, training, seminars, parent-child tandem cooking contests using vegetables harvested from the school gardens, and close collaboration with the local government units (LGUs) in providing garden inputs and services.
