Children at the Special Training Centre (STC) under the National Child Labour Project (NCLP), at Gundri Hills have a reason to cheer as they started harvesting vegetables they cultivated in their centre garden here.
Children working in sugarcane field, jasmine field and involved in other works were rescued and admitted to the centre where they are provided special training before being admitted to the regular schools.
As many as 25 children are provided training at the centre that is run by an NGO, Service Unit for Development Activities in Rural (SUDAR). As part of encouraging students to learn farming, saplings including tomato, brinjal, cauliflower, cabbage, chilly and radish were cultivated by children in the small garden available at the backyard of the centre in the last week of November last. Watering and maintaining of the plants are undertaken by the students daily and harvesting of vegetables had begun recently.
Centre coordinator C. Sathish said that vegetables from the organic farm were used in cooking noon-meal for the children and added that children are much happy as they consume the vegetables that were grown by them. He said that fertilizers were not used and students maintain the plants regularly. “They were encouraged to do organic farming in the space available at their home”, he added.