Step 16: First students for a work camp

From 5th to 12th of May 2009, the Virlanie School Farm of Sagay received 6 young adults from Virlanie Manila and 2 young farmers from Luna, Sagay. School levels was from grade 2 to college, the age from 16 to 24 years old and the knowledge in English sometimes limited. Not easy for the teacher! but with the help of translators, we rapidly found a way to understand us. As we have not yet facilities in the farm, they were lodged in Kauswagan Sagay City and the Barangay of Luna offered the lunches and a classroom in the elementary school. Virlanie and I are very grateful to the Captain Barangay Brenda Benedicto for her generous help and assistance.

The non-stop 8 days program was organized with theoretical formation during the morning and practical

activities on the field or visits during the afternoon. The order was: "Open your eyes, open your brain, open your heart and you will find the answers!"

After the discovery of the farm, the program covered the soil, its structure and its life and how to improve it,

the

laws of the nature, an introduction to the

natural farming, and the profit in the farm through the

processing of the raw products.

About practical activities, they experimented some basic test to know the soil, the jam processing and plantation of trees.

Different visits and meetings was also organised: meeting

with sugar cane

workers, and with Ronnie Doitay, a natural

farmer installed in the South of Sagay. The

visits were in

the farm of

Sagay(vermicompost,

piggery, diary farm, and organic garden), the Sugar Mill of Sagay central. For the Sunday a special game was organized around the adverse conditions, the

adaptation of plants and the use of the mangrove.

Four teams of two students were formed and each team

received at the beginning of the

training course a subject to study and to present at the end

of

the work camp. Each

subject was an agriculture processing (Jatropha soap,

Mulberry and silk worms, Rice wine and lemon grass oil). With dall the information received during the lectures, the practical

activities, various reading materials, the visits and the meetings, they have the elements to answer to three questions:

- Can I grow this plant in that place?

- Can I manage the processing?

- Can I sell the final product?

These questions are finally the questions good for every

farmers who choose the way of the future,

I mean: the

agribusiness.

Each student received a certificate of participation to this first teaching experience in the future Virlanie School Farm of Sagay. Most of them wish to come

back in Luna when the

school will open.