Mangaluru : A few kilograms of home-grown vegetables to feed scribes and their families descending on this coastal city for the two-day 35th state conference of journalists’ commencing here on Saturday is certainly not enough. Yet making this small yet meaningful gesture to the conference that Karnataka Union of Working Journalists is rganising was the School Development and Committee of Government Upgrade Higher Primary School, School, Kuthloor, in Belthangady taluk.

Handing over an assortment of vegetables grown on the 0.5 acre school garden to the host association—DKWJU—on Friday, Ramachandra Bhat, SDMC member, said things have only looked bright for this rural school ever since DKWJU held a ‘grama vastavya’ there on December 23, 2018. “Ours was a school on the verge of closure with dwindling student strength, and for their village stay. We just wanted to repay their kindness,” Bhat said.

The school garden, thanks to the SDMC, is flush with 14 types of vegetables such as pumpkin, long beans, tomatoes and bitter gourd, all of which are used in the midday meals served to the 66 students studying there. Excess vegetables,if any, are sold to parents of students and the villagers, and funds generated used for betterment of the school, says assistant teacher Prashant. Students help Bhat in watering the garden prior to start of school, and even help him in this task on holidays.

Vegetables are organic and only cow dung slurry and green cow dung slurry and green compost is used to grow them. Barring the cucumber patch that is old and needs replanting, other vegetable patches are thriving, he says. This in-house effor and campaign from SDMC has enthused villagers to enrol their wards to this school which has seen its

strength rise to 66. The school has six staff and two honorary teachers that DKWJU is funding, and two others who take Kannada and spoken English classes for free.

The resurgence of this government school has also caught the attention of minister for primary and secondary education Suresh Kumar, who plans to visit it during the next academic year, and interact with students there, says Srinivas Nayak Indaje, president, DKWJU.