Nov 28, Kathmandu- To improve children's nutrition, the Nepal Rural Complete Construction Project has started building nutrition gardens in schools in Rolpa.

In order to reduce the consumption of junk food by increasing the use of nutritious and fresh vegetables in the school lunch, the construction of a nutrition garden has been started. The students of Suryodaya Secondary School of Masina, Runtigadhi Rural Municipality-4 of Rolpa are building a vegetable garden inside the school for nutrition instead of flowers. Nepal Rural Complete Construction Organization RRN Project has started building nutrition gardens in remote schools to give students practice in farming. It helps to replace unhealthy food and give practical knowledge and skills to the students.

According to the school, it has helped the students to make changes in their homes if they can practice nutrition in the school. It is said that what the students have learned will be taught to their parents at home and will help them to start a business at home. Zabilal Subedi, acting principal of the school, said that students are eating unhealthy food for lunch and if students are informed about nutrition, nutrition will improve.

The students said that the project has given them information about crop cycle, application time, what kind of nutrition they get from crops, and biological pesticides. They say that due to the lack of information about the use of pesticides in crops, not only the ostriches but also the friends of the crops are dying. Also, when planting crops at home, the students say that they used to plant crops randomly without knowing which crop to plant and at what time, and now they are taught to use crop rotation at home as well.

Even though the government of Nepal has banned the use of unhealthy food in schools, it has not been implemented. If it is possible to practice and implement to stop the use of such food as in this school, it would help in the nutrition of the students as well as in the implementation of the government's decision.