Jarren Gangiah, a Grade 7 science teacher at Charles Duna Primary School, is no ordinary teacher. With more than 1 060 students at the school in New Brighton, he is passionate about enhancing the lives and minds of his learners and the surrounding communities: “Partnering with INMED South Africa and their Health in Action programme has been such a positive experience.”
Health in Action is a partnership of INMED South Africa and the Mondeléz International Foundation to promote access to fresh foods via school gardens, nutrition and healthy lifestyles education and participatory fitness activities in low-resourced primary schools.
As part of the Health in Action programme, Charles Duna Primary maintains a fresh produce garden, where students and teachers use a growing tunnel and garden patches to produce fresh vegetables, which are supplied to the school’s kitchen and sold as a form of income for unemployed community members.
The school will be the first Health in Action school in Gqeberha to receive an INMED Aquaponics system, which will significantly increase the amount of fresh produce for the school and raise exotic ornamental fish. “This will provide us with the opportunity to grow fresh produce in the system while growing and breeding fish that will be sold to local pet stores and community members in Gqeberha,” said Gangiah.
Gangiah said they have tested the concept and had proof that they could successfully cycle and breed guppies inside the school tank.
“This gives us the confidence to go ahead to build our design of an aquaponics system so that we can proceed with the next steps in testing.”
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