Annet is an enthusiastic teacher of Agriculture at Tororo Girls School, Uganda. In 2023 she won a scholarship through HATW’s collaboration with Marshal Papworth to attend a 10-week course on sustainable agriculture at Harper Adams University in the UK.
Annet reflects on her experience:
“The short course provided a comprehensive curriculum that blended theoretical knowledge with hands on experience. [It] enabled me to gain practical insights into real world challenges faced by the farming communities… Being a teacher of Agriculture, I am able to work with students to promote sustainable farming practices at school such as using organic manure, planting vegetables, mulching and maintaining trees at the school. These have helped to improve yields as well as diet for the learners.”
After her trip to the UK, she returned to Uganda and has since developed a new project at Tororo Girls School.
The school has 2,000 pupils and the project aims to improve the children’s diets, teach them about climate-smart agriculture and ways to mitigate climate change through soil carbon sequestration.
The project is situated in the context of gender inequality: climate change disproportionately impacts women and girls. For climate-vulnerable countries in Africa with high levels of gender inequality, climate-related disruptions are likely to translate into the end of schooling for girls and their premature transition to adulthood. When drought or flooding affects the availability of water at school, menstruating learners (and teachers) are likely to miss school as a result. This means girls missing school days as well as dropping out of school entirely, with life-long implications for their wellbeing and prospects.
Annet’s project at Totoro is now well under way, and is a wonderful example of how empowering and educating enthusiastic learners such as Annet can have a hugely positive impact on a whole community.
