News & Events

Nutrition taking root in Jamaica

INMED Lyrics for Life garden lab teaches children, families healthy lifestyle

Ashburn, Virginia, December 22, 2008—Nearly 1,600 children encouraged to adopt healthy lifestyles gained some added incentive last week when volunteers transformed a two-acre barren dust field into a multi-story garden and recreation site at the Iris Gelly Primary School.

The garden and recreation field, said INMED Caribbean Director Robert Wright, are symbolic of the healthy lifestyle transformation that children and their families are seeking by participating in INMED’s Lyrics for Life project.

Nearly 35 percent of students at the school are underweight or overweight, he noted. Students at the Trench Town Primary School also participate in the project and built a similar garden earlier this year.

“Students stand to benefit from the access to nutritious foods that will be grown at the school and will learn how to plant a garden and perhaps bring this healthy lifestyle practice home for their parents to emulate,” he said.

INMED Caribbean is the regional program initiative for INMED Partnerships for Children, an international children’s welfare organization working in more than 100 countries since 1986 to ensure children’s health, education and safety from prenatal care and infancy through adolescence and to inspire communities to invest in sustainable positive change for today’s generation of children and those to come.

“The Lyrics for Life project is a model for children to share what they learn with their families so that they have the knowledge and tools needed to sustain healthy lifestyles,” said Linda Pfeiffer, president and CEO of INMED Partnerships for Children. “If more and more families do plant their own gardens, for instance, then what you begin to see is a cultural change of empowerment to overcome many of the issues that threaten today’s children.”

Launched this year with funding from the Pan American Health Foundation, Lyrics for Life incorporates classroom nutrition education, cultivation of school gardens and physical activity through music and lyrics developed by students. Additional supporters include the Gibson Guitar Co., the Bob Marley Foundation, Jamaica 4-H clubs and the Jamaica Tree Growers Association.

“PAHEF is encouraged to see the progress made by the Lyrics for Life project, transforming a dusty lot into a garden and a sports field,” said PAHEF Executive Director Edward L. Kadunc. “It will be great when all the students at the Trench Town primary schools are eating healthy, more nutritious foods, and participating in physical activity. Their families and communities will benefit, and they will be off to a healthy start on life.”

Ten volunteers including children worked through a single day – from 9:30 a.m. to sunset – to prep the field with vegetable beds for planting a garden that will serve as a learning site for children. More than 100 different types of fruit trees and plants – avocado, orange, otaheiti apple and others – will be planted in the next six months.

“I’m just happy to finally have a real area to teach,” said James Jones, an agricultural science teacher for the 4-H Club.

Ornamental and shade trees and plants will also be planted to encourage children and families to visit the garden and become that much more familiar with the site and its educational features, noted project adviser to INMED Jamaica Ava-Gail Gardiner.

“There is a tree for everything and everyone,” she said.

About INMED Partnerships for Children

Since 1986, INMED Partnerships for Children (www.inmed.org), an international non-profit humanitarian development organization, has worked in more than 100 countries to fulfill a wide range of health, nutrition, education, violence prevention and community development projects that create a continuum of care for children from the prenatal period through adulthood by empowering families and communities to support the development of healthy, educated children for increased opportunities for the future.

Contact Info:

INMED Partnerships for Children
Mary-Lynne Lasco, Director of Development
281-465-4693, or contact@inmed.org