School gardens to contain AMR: Belén Juca’s experience with children in Ecuador

2026-03-26

One ordinary morning at a school in Ecuador, a group of children carefully water small sprouts of mint and radish. Before doing so, they pause for a moment to ask Mother Earth for permission. This is not an imposed ritual or a school slogan; it is a gesture that emerged from learning to care for life. Watching the scene closely is Belén Juca, a General Basic Education teacher. This is part of the AlForja Educativa program initiated by ReAct Latin America.

For Belen, education is not limited to classroom content: it is an opportunity to transform how we understand health, food, and our relationship with nature. “Health is not something isolated,”she often says, “it is the result of the balance between people, food, microorganisms, and Mother Earth”.

Teacher Belen Juca with her young students. Photo: ReAct Latin America.

Belen, tell us, how did you get the idea of turning the garden into a living classroom?

– My conviction grew stronger when I began working with the school garden. I was deeply motivated by its pedagogical potential: the possibility of innovating, diversifying learning environments, and naturally linking the curricular content covered daily in the classroom. Sowing, observing, waiting, making mistakes, and trying again opened the door to deep and lasting learning.

– The first approach did not start directly with the soil, but with seeds. Before planting them, the children played with them, observed them closely, and formulated hypotheses. In Language class, they described what they saw; in Mathematics, the seeds became materials for understanding multiplication. Everything happened in an integrated way, without rigid divisions between subjects. The garden was beginning to show that learning can also be a living experience.

How did the children respond to the gardening activity?

–  The children’s reaction was key. Many excitedly shared that they had never planted anything before. They spoke about what they expected to grow and what they imagined finding under the earth. I recall a detail that was especially moving: in the first planting, I decided not to tell them which seeds they were planting.

– Every day, the children would approach enthusiastically and repeat the same phrase:

“Teacher, I know what it is now”.

– I observed positive changes in their ability to relate and describe the processes they were carrying out, as well as in the emotion with which they tell their families what they do every day in their garden. The children were not just learning content: they were taking ownership of the space and felt part of something bigger. A sense of belonging is evident, and they become promoters of a discourse on health care and the environment.

–  The process had the openness and support of the educational authorities, who allowed the experiment to grow with confidence. It was the children themselves who took it upon themselves to tell other teachers what they were doing in the garden, sparking curiosity and interest in the educational community. The most emotional impact came from the families, who shared how their children wanted to plant at home and recounted their progress with joy every day.

How does this activity help children learn, understand, and replicate?

– I saw a strengthening of their self-esteem, involvement, and meaningful learning; commitment, discipline, and perseverance in caring for the garden were also observed.

– The learning filtered into daily life: at home, the children explained where food comes from, insisted on handwashing, and spoke of self-care. In addition, habits such as handwashing and awareness about their diet are strengthened by understanding where the products come from.

–  Without realizing it, the children began to question the idea of medication as an immediate solution. From everyday actions, they understood that prevention is also caring: caring for the body, the environment, and the microorganisms that make life possible. Thus, the garden became an unexpected ally against Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR).

Explain your concept of learning by doing and caring by feeling.

– I believe that the school garden became such a powerful learning tool because it has a pedagogical potential that allows for the integration of processes from all subjects through experimental learning.

– But there is something more. The garden also educates in values. The garden fosters the formation of values in a genuine way. Responsibility, tenderness, creativity, empathy with living beings, self-care, patience, and resilience when things do not always turn out as expected. The garden invites us to share, to practice solidarity, cooperation, and the joining of efforts for a common good.

How do you see the idea spreading regionally?

– This experience did not stay within four walls. I have already shared it with other teachers in the region during the Empowered Communities Meeting in Tucumán, where I described how a school garden can become a concrete strategy for talking about health, the microbial world, and AMR from childhood.
What happens in this school garden can also happen in other schools in Ecuador and Latin America. It is not about large infrastructure or complex solutions, but about looking at education and health from their roots. Replicating these experiences is a concrete action against AMR.

– Containing AMR does not start in hospitals; it also starts in school, in the soil, in the small hands that learn to care. It starts when a girl waters a plant and understands that life is sustained in balance. Because the microbial world is not something distant. It is in the ground we walk on, in the food we eat, and in the daily decisions we make. And sometimes, it all begins with a garden, a curious question, and a teacher who truly believes in the power of sowing awareness from childhood. The garden is a living laboratory for learning by doing and caring for life.