Giving Compass' Take:

• Food Tank highlights The Diyalo Foundation, based out of Nepal, their goal is to educate and inspire children on sustainable development and agriculture along with teaching standard academics such as reading and writing. 

• How can we teach students about food and agriculture in schools across America? What programs and projects can donors fund that shine an importance on a sustainable food system?

• Here's an article on 12 children's books to grow future food leaders. 

“Education is probably the most powerful tool to get people out of poverty,” says Surya Karki, Co-Founder of the Diyalo Foundation, to Food Tank. “Our core belief is that by teaching children how to read, write, and count it also teaches them to dream—dream to pursue a career that is meaningful to them and that forms a path to prosperity.”

The Diyalo Foundation educates with a sustainable development approach, combatting Nepal’s high illiteracy and poverty rates. This free, high-quality education contextualizes learning to the local context, and to Karki, this means teaching agriculture. “Nepal’s economy is highly agriculture-dependent, and since Diyalo works in remote areas built on farming, teaching agriculture was a natural choice,” he says to Food Tank.

This approach nurtures what Karki describes as “the next generation of farmers who farm not because they have to, but because they are truly interested in agriculture.” Instead of walking long distances to crowded government classrooms, Diyalo students receive hands-on learning in their own community. Children digging into familiar soil in agri-gardens learn math, science, and global issues through food production and share this knowledge with their communities.

Read the full article about teaching children in Nepal about sustainable agriculture by Natalie Quathamer at Food Tank