By: Lailyn P. Nacua

To continue advocating and raising consciousness on health and nutrition even amid pandemic, Fourth Estate Elementary School- Marcelo Green (FEES-MG) switched from Gulayan sa Paaralan Program to Gulayan sa Tahanan.

The EPP/TLE teachers, headed by the GO GREEN coordinator, Lailyn P. Nacua conducted an online orientation and sent videos to parents and learners to specifically educate learners in improving nutrition at home especially during this pandemic. The program started last October 2020 up to the end of the school year in July 2021.

In order to attain functional and well-managed Gulayan sa Tahanan, information dissemination was materialized through videos or virtual orientation to learners as well as parents to help them acquire technical know-hows in creating, putting up and designing a bio-intensive vertical garden for planting vegetables as well as making the garden an instrument in protecting the environment. 

This drive will also pave a way in increasing the availability of vegetables in backyards, likewise, providing them with a heightened awareness of environmental protection through the productive use of recyclable waste materials to be utilized as containers and pots in the garden. Each family will create and organize Gulayan sa Tahanan as part of their support to intensify the implementation of Gulayan sa Tahanan.

Learners and parents have add-on and start-up provisions given to do such initiatives through The Gulayan sa Tahanan Program, which basically teach learners how to be more productive by planting vegetables so they can value the essence of such activity as they can eat their homegrown products.

Intensive monitoring and evaluation was done every quarter to track the progress of Gulayan sa Tahanan in each family through the submitted pictures of their plants.  As a reward, the school, through this program, conducted a Home-based search (based on the pictures they share) for the best plants or backyard implementers of Gulayan sa Tahanan Project during the last quarter of the school year.