Today is International Youth Day - August 12
Today is a day designated by the United Nations to bring attention to the challenges and opportunities facing today’s global youth. To commemorate International Youth Day, we are sharing 5 points of interest about today’s global youth, a summary of selected SPI projects focused on youth, and a few highlights regarding what you can do to support youth in your community and around the world.
Here are 5 things to know about young people, with a focus on food security and nutrition:
- Over half of all people on Earth are under 30 years old. This number is expected to reach 57% by 2030 (UN, 2024).
- Food insecurity can have extensive negative impacts on young people, including a higher risk of stunting, being underweight, anemia, increased sickness, poor academic performance, and negative mental health (Frongillo et al., 2024).
- Food insecure young people were found to have lower intake of vegetables and a higher intake of added sugars (Frongillo et al., 2024). According to the US Center for Disease and Control Prevention (2023), 49% of American children between the ages of 1 and 5 do not eat a vegetable daily.
- School gardening programs have been found to have positive effects on school age children, including increased intake for fruits and vegetables, dietary fiber, and vitamins A and C. The children also had improved body mass indexes and overall well-being – indicated by improved social skills, confidence, social connections, and sense of belonging (Holloway et al., 2023).
- The average age of farmers around the world, including in developing nations, is approaching 60. As older farmers retire, new jobs in agriculture are becoming available for today’s youth as they grow into adulthood. Farming jobs are not always seen as desirable by today’s youth. Programs exist around the world to increase youth interest and involvement in agriculture in order to ensure global food production can continue to advance and sustain our global population growth.
SPI is Actively Supporting Youth Programs
At SPI, we understand that today’s youth are the future and investing in their healthy development will make our world a better place. Gardens provide an enriching environment for children to learn, play, interact with their peers, and grow nutritious food to support their healthy development. We are currently supporting several garden programs, both domestically and internationally, to support young people as they learn about agriculture and improve their food literacy.
In 2024, we are supporting kid and youth garden clubs in Uganda, Guatemala, Kyrgyzstan, Poland, Ukraine, and the US. These programs grow healthy vegetables to supplement school meals and teach the youth valuable lessons about gardening, agriculture, and farming.
- In Uganda – we’re partnering with SCINE to create school gardens in Kampala. 8 school gardens have been created over the last three years.
- In Guatemala – we’re partnering with Amachajul to create a second greenhouse with a remote community in the Chajul mountains.
- In Kyrgyzstan – we’re partnering with PF AVEP to support a vocational school with practical on-farm training about vegetable and silage production.
- In Poland – we’re partnering with Resiliency Gardens, the Fundacja Naturalnego Rozwoju, and schools in Rybnik for school gardening programs. Last school year, we partnered with 10 schools and we will partner with an additional 10 schools this coming school year.
- In Ukraine – we’re partnering with BARD to create an urban garden at a library and grow herbs for tea in Chortkiv. Students at a school in Kyiv are participating in a program to grow vegetables to cook a Family Borscht.
- In the US – we currently have over 15 partners in programs across the country. These programs range from growing vegetables with school children, creating seed learning libraries with public libraries, hosting cooking lessons for grown vegetables with community youth, planting pollinator gardens with girl scouts, and planting sensory gardens with students with autism.
Interested in Helping?
There are many ways to support programs that help young people!
Get involved in your community – If you know of an organization that is already doing great work with youth in your community, then reach out and see if you can volunteer or get involved.
- If they would like to start a garden, then we would be happy to donate seeds to your gardening program.
- We also recently created a gardening manual for us by US garden programs. You can view it here.
- If you are in the US and interested in starting a garden club, check out our idea on ChangeX. They offer funding to approved garden programs, as funds exist.
Start with Packaging Seed – If you have a youth program in mind, you can get it started by having youth package the seed that will be needed for the project. Contact us at getinvolved@seedprograms.org to learn more.
Donate – Donations help increase our impact as we partner with communities around the globe, to enable access to quality seed, training, and agricultural resources to improve food security, strengthen communities, and cultivate sustainable livelihoods. Become a monthly donor and you will receive a donor gift of two 100% Pure Beeswax Taper Candles that have been donated to us by Mohawk Valley Trading Company.
Interested in other ways to donate, Click Here. You can pay with PayPal. We have accounts with the Combined Federal Campaign (CFC) and Benevity to assist with workplace giving. Check with your employer to see if they offer donation matches. We’re also happy to work with your workplace giving team to create a campaign specific to your group. Contact us at getinvolved@seedprograms.org to start the conversation.
Thank you for all of your support!
