Community development with family farm schools

It’s a typical but heartbreaking scenario.

Miles and miles of lands lie idle in the countryside, waiting for hands to turn them into lush, fruitful fields. Shanties dot the rural landscape and potbellied children play under the sun when they should be in school.

Not so in the European and American countryside, where people are busy. Most of the lands are used and peasant families are well-to-do. They use technology to work the land which yields bountiful harvests.

The big difference: family farm schools. A family farm school is an association of families, professionals and institutions that assume the responsibility of development and promotion of the rural environment. The school follows integral educative actions to respond to their area’s common problems. The approach uses education of the youth and community members to start dynamism in the usual stagnant rural areas of the Philippines.

The Philippines has six of these schools with one more to open by June in Mindanao. Parents actively participate in the school where they help their children – the students – put up community livelihood projects. Experts and professionals lecture on topics related to study themes or projects.

The first family farm school was put up in Lipa City in 1988. The alumni are now successful in their chosen field in agriculture. Others have made their farms grow, while some have become teachers in their alma mater. Thirty percent of graduates have gone on to university studies. Others get well-paying jobs in the city or abroad. Others remain in their farms to develop high value livelihood projects. This has augmented the income of the school’s nearby residents. Progress is visible.

The Family Farm Schools’ success is rooted on the coherence and unity of the families and members which lies in formation activities and projects they launch to help uplift their economic status. There is also their sense of cooperativism and dynamism to solve their problems. Academic and real-life learning combine with lessons conducted in school and at the students’ family business or farms.