The complex, part of the educational project “Learning from Nature,” is host to dozens of varieties of fruits, flowers, trees, herbs, and decorative and medicinal plants. It was initiated by the Bangla grass-roots organization Krisoker Sor (Farmers' Voice), run by Zakir Hossain, M.D., a graduate of Ecological Agriculture at Wageningen University in the Netherlands.
Hossain has been involved with the place since 2001, and now oversees the educational blossoming of around 500 children, including third-, fourth- and fifth-graders, preschoolers, and children who have dropped out. The project aims to engender in children a stronger kinship with nature and the environment.
And this goes along with a commensurate development in their personalities, talents, ability to think and reflect, and even physical fitness. It also gives the eager pupils a strong sense of place.
“The struggle is to build a new paradigm, which is ecologically sound and safer for children in stepping into the future,” Hossain said, who is always ready to extrapolate from his pet project to global concerns.
For the last six months Sweety, Farza, and Yasmin have been inductee botanists: watering plants, pruning, documenting, and seeding them. Now the three are preparing New Year cards using plant leaves, and sending them to their far-flung friends.
These acquaintances include the East Sujankathi Primary School, which is in Bangladesh, Hillhead Primary School in the U.K., Wat Pramanathat School in Thailand, Brookside Elementary School in Canada, and Winthrop Avenue Primary School in the United States.
“Exchanging New Year cards is becoming popular even among the children,” Hossain explained. The epistolary friendships give all involved a global perspective.
After that they will be busy helping Hossain move shop: their tiny natural heaven in the heart of a city of 12 million has to relocate by Feb. 5. Financial troubles forced Hossain’s hand.
“Naturally, at the beginning of 2011, most of the girls’ wishes will be focused on the plants—which will be relocated with great sorrow, joy and pain,” he says. “The plants really need strength from Mother Nature to keep the Earth alive.”
The “Learning from Nature” project began because its founders considered that conserving biodiversity is one of the greatest challenges facing humankind today.
“Rural people in a village depend on genetic species and ecosystem diversity to support their livelihood,” Hossain said. Biological diversity impacts health, nutrition, housing, and income generation, he said.
Conserving nature and using its fruits in a sustainable way are thus part of the education students should receive, he said, adding that it is a burden shared both by NGOs and local governments.
With time the project has brought children to better connect with nature in its many varieties: this has long term consequences for nutrition, proper physical and mental growth, problem-solving skills, and the children’s spirit of charity toward others.
By taking responsibility for the care of plants, they are preparing to take responsibility for bigger things later in life. And in doing so they become a stronger part of the life of their own communities—far more than would a child sitting at a computer, for example.
“They are spontaneously discovering and employing their wisdom,” Hossain said, “Thus sowing the seeds of their own humanity.”
