Sustainable Agriculture

UNICEF had a global strategy with three pillars: Future skills, education, and the empowerment of girls in the second decade of life. The brief was to address these strategic pillars in the hardest and least resourced of places, as a proof point for scale. In their words, “If we can do something in Burundi, the poorest country in the world, we can do it anywhere.” Nakatomi wanted to move beyond awareness and actually make something that contributed to systemic and generational change — by leveraging the role of education.

Nakatomi prototyped innovative farming solutions in Sydney, ensuring that the projects could be constructed with materials available in the local Burundi environment and that they would provide a meaningful context for scientific concepts. In partnership with Burundi’s Ministry of Education, Nakatomi implemented a train-the-trainer model, gathering ten teachers from ten different provinces for a week-long training session facilitated by the local UNICEF team. This training equipped teachers with the necessary resources to implement the projects in their schools.

It’s vital to teach children that they have the power to make a difference and think creatively in a way that gives them the agency to make change — locally and globally. The Ministry of Education in Burundi understands that investing in innovation and entrepreneurship today will build relevant skills in an industry that will lead the country out of poverty. Nakatomi decided to design the curriculum around projects that tackle contextually-relevant problems, fostering a belief that these challenges are indeed solvable.