Ashoka
Seeding Change: When a School Garden Becomes a Lifeline for Healthy Food Access
Seeing a need
Spanning parts of Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah, the Navajo Nation is home to great natural beauty and rich cultural heritage – near some of the starriest nighttime skies in the world are nearby, as are the oldest continuously inhabited towns in North America. Yet on the reservation, due to low public investment for decades, much of the public and commercial infrastructure is not well developed. “We have to drive over an hour into Flagstaff just to get groceries,” Nariah told us. “We have basically just gas stations and processed foods.” Indeed, with just 10 grocery stores on the whole of Navajo Nation, access to fresh food is very limited, giving rise to diabetes, pre-diabetes, and other diet-linked health conditions.
Seeding change: a vision of abundance
In response, students and educators at STAR School are casting ahead to a different kind of future: a future where abundant fresh vegetables are grown locally and available year-round. To this end, students are now leading the development of a school garden, with the goal of growing nourishing food – including traditional plants such as beans, squash, corn, and wild spinach – and having more agency. Alberta, who initiated the garden, shares: “Practicing food sovereignty means feeding our bodies with the foods our ancestors ate, so we can properly metabolize it, with the right proteins, vitamins, minerals that our bodies truly need.”
A school at the heart of a community
Having developed the garden, Hannah and Nariah and their classmates are expanding it and seeing the change ripple out into the surrounding community. “It’s making a big change in how people are getting food. They can get vegetable food boxes from us that they take home and cook with the vegetables that they get from our school,” says Nariah. And best of all, the knowledge of how and what and when to plant is spreading – so far, 10 families have been inspired to create gardens of their own, tapping the knowledge of students and the school community.
Beyond gardens: a community of changemakers
“I’m proud to be a changemaker,” says Nariah. “The project made me feel good to finally be a part of something major. It’s getting me out of my comfort zone. And it has been a real good change for this community." Hannah added that she has found gratifying “being a role model to little ones” in grades below her at STAR School.
As for Ms. Alberta, she sees her role as supporting her students by "helping them order materials, get seeds together, and understand some of the things about growing plants. So, what temperatures do they need? Are they cool crops? Are they warm crops? Which plants grow together, which ones don't. [Expanding the garden] is their decision. It is their leadership. And for me, I'm just here just to make sure they are safe, make sure they have the inputs and resources they need. And if they have any questions, how to go about things.”
Armed with a new vision for what their community can look like and their school as an engine for change and improvement, they are also looking to a future where solutions sprout from within the community. What will this look like? “There would be more voices heard and people would understand that there would be a problem in their community and would want to help. And not being shy or being turned down. Not being afraid to actually stand up for what the problem is.” And, as Hannah and Nariah and other STAR School students are showing, how to fix it.
This story is part of the Time for Change series.