To celebrate Terra Madre Day, the school children and teachers of Wahsohra LP SSA school – East Khasi Hills District, organised an interactive workshop on the importance of Seed Selection, Storage and their Usage followed by a drawing session on the theme’ Mei-Ramew’ or Mother Earth and then an eat-in.
Understanding the importance of local seeds and the need for its promotion and preservation, especially among young minds, the school teachers called a few farmers from the village as resource persons for an interactive session. The students were asked to collect seeds from the farmers using they were later taught a technique of traditional seed selection, storage and usage.
Kong Kalmela, a farmer from Wahsohra, offered her house for the storage of the seeds collected in a traditional way. These seeds will be used in the Wahsohra School Garden during the coming planting season. The varieties of seeds collected included beans, sesame, yam, ginger, soya bean, cucumber and potato. This session was undertaken to acquaint school children with the local traditional seed keeping practices and to promote and generate awareness about the advantages of self reliance and self sufficiency in relation to agriculture.
Keeping in mind the theme Mother Earth/Mei Ram ew, the school children displayed their creativity through beautiful drawings.
The day ended with an eat-in where children enjoyed munching local snacks with tea.
Reported by Janak Preet Singh
