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MyHealthy Africa · Force for Health Network
For teachers, parents & community leaders
MyHealthy Africa — Teachers & Parents Companion Guide
Growing food, building health, and standing together through a hard season Learn It · Live It · Share It
Hello — I'm Coach Addison Konlan
PhD Student · Force for Health Fellow · Your Food Guide
This guide is for the grown-ups. The children have games, simulations, and workbooks to explore — your job is to walk beside them. You do not need to be a farmer or a teacher by training. You only need to care, to keep things safe, and to listen. I will give you everything else.
Who this is for
Teachers running the MyHealthy Africa activities with a class or club — even with schools closed.
Parents and guardians growing food in the schoolyard or at home and learning alongside their children.
Community leaders and volunteers supporting families through the Ebola outbreak and the food shortage it brought.
Pair this guide with the A–Z Foods from Africa booklet in the Force for Health library — look up each crop to learn its nutrition and traditional uses. Library: www.theforceforhealth.com (exact booklet link to be added).
What This Program Is — and Why It Matters
In Eastern Uganda, near Mbale and the slopes of Mount Elgon, the Harlon Schools had to close their doors because of an Ebola outbreak. Children could not gather in classrooms, markets were quiet, and many families worried about where their next meals would come from.
So the community did something hopeful: they began growing food in the schoolyard. MyHealthy Africa turns that schoolyard into a living classroom — teaching food security and food preservation so that no harvest is wasted and no season is feared.
Learn It · Live It · Share It
Learn It — Understand the crops, the soil, and the safety rules. (Games, bingo, magazine.)
Live It — Plant, tend, harvest, and preserve real food with your hands. (Garden, workbooks.)
Share It — Teach one more household what you learned, so the whole community grows stronger.
The crops we grow together
Maize & beans — grown together (intercropped); the beans fix nitrogen in the soil to feed the maize.
Cassava — drought-resistant; the leaves can be eaten early, and the roots store for months in the ground.
Sweet potato — rich in Vitamin A; its leaves, too, can be eaten early while the roots grow.
Coach Addison says
Why it matters
A closed school does not have to mean a stopped education. When a child plants a bean and watches it feed the maize beside it, they are learning science, health, and hope all at once — and the harvest feeds the family that taught them.
The Toolkit: Your Assets and How to Use Them
MyHealthy Africa comes with several pieces that work together. Use them in any order, but this is how each one is meant to be used.
An interactive map laid over the real school aerial photo. Children move through Learn It · Live It · Share It and make choices in three decision simulations (planting, harvesting, preserving). Use it to introduce a topic before going outside, or to review after garden work. Best on a shared screen with the group deciding together.
Learn-It Bingo Cards Plant · Harvest · Preserve
Three 3×3 cards. Each square opens a single concept. Use as a warm-up or review game — call a concept, players find and discuss the square, mark it when they can explain it. Great for mixed ages and for families with little reading.
Student Workbooks (printable)
Write-in pages for planning, practicing, and pledging — including the Food Preservation Workbook. Use during Live It for hands-on planning, and during Share It for the family pledge. Print one per child or per household.
MyHealthy Africa Magazine
Stories, photos, and explainers from Harlon Schools. Use for quiet reading, read-aloud, and discussion, or to send home so parents can catch up on what the children are doing.
The A–Z Foods from Africa booklet is the reference for every crop's nutrition and uses. Keep it nearby whenever a food comes up. www.theforceforhealth.com — exact link to be added.
How to Facilitate
Leading the simulations
Decide as a group. Read each choice aloud, ask "what do you think and why?", then vote before clicking.
Wrong answers are gold. When the simulation shows a poor outcome, ask what they would do differently — that is the real lesson.
Connect to the real garden. After a simulation, walk outside and point to the same crop or step in your own schoolyard plot.
Leading the bingo
Let players explain a square before marking it, not just find it. Understanding wins, not speed.
Pair a strong reader with a younger child so everyone takes part.
Keep rounds short and celebrate each completed card.
Making it safe and supportive
Open by agreeing the group is a kind, no-teasing space.
Let any child pass on a question without explaining why.
Watch faces, not just hands — quiet children may be carrying the most.
A hard moment may come up — handle it gently. One scene in the program shows a family member falling sick. During an Ebola outbreak, some children in your group may have lived this for real, or may be frightened by it.
Name it calmly. "This part shows someone getting sick. It can feel heavy. We can take our time."
Reassure with facts. Washing hands, not touching the face, and staying apart from sick people keep us safe. We are learning exactly how to protect our families.
Offer a way out. Any child may step aside or sit quietly; never force participation.
Watch for distress — tears, withdrawal, or a child saying this happened to them. Pause, comfort, and quietly tell a parent, health worker, or counsellor afterward.
Close on hope. End the session with the garden, the harvest, or the pledge — something growing and good.
Ebola Garden Safety — A Checklist
Read these rules aloud before every garden session. Tick each one as you confirm it with the group.
Wash hands before and after working in the garden — every time.
Don't touch your face while working — eyes, nose, and mouth especially.
Work in small groups, spaced apart, not in one big crowd.
Report any sick or dead animals to an adult or health worker — do not touch them.
Stay home if you feel feverish or unwell, and tell a grown-up.
Why these rules work
Ebola spreads through contact. Clean hands and an untouched face break that chain. Spacing out keeps any illness from passing between us. Reporting sick animals and staying home when feverish stops the outbreak before it can grow. These are the same protections health workers use — and now your family uses them too.
Coach Addison says
Safety first, always
A garden should heal, never harm. If you only remember one thing, remember this: clean hands, and hands away from the face. Make it a habit and you make your whole family safer.
Discussion Questions
Use these any time — around the garden, after a simulation, or at home. There are no wrong answers; the talking is the point.
Planting
Why do we grow maize and beans together? What does the bean give to the soil that helps the maize?
Cassava and sweet potato can be harvested for their leaves early. Why is that helpful while we wait for the roots?
Harvesting
Why might we leave most of the cassava in the ground instead of digging it all up at once?
How do we decide how much to harvest today and how much to save for later?
Preserving
Why must maize be fully dried before we store it? What dangerous thing can grow on undried maize?
Name two ways to save food without electricity, and what each one removes from the food.
Sharing
Who in our community could we teach next, and what one skill would help them most?
How does sharing what we grow and what we know make the whole village stronger?
A Suggested 4-Week Schedule
A simple rhythm you can stretch or shorten to fit your garden and your group. Each week blends Learn It, Live It, and Share It.
Week
Focus
What to do
Week 1
Learn
Introduce the program and the crops. Play the Plant bingo card, explore the Garden Simulation (Learn It), read a magazine story, and review the Ebola garden safety checklist together.
Week 2
Plant / Live
Go outside and plant. Intercrop maize and beans; set in cassava and sweet potato. Use the workbook to plan the plot. Practice the safety routine: wash hands, work in small groups.
Week 3
Harvest
Tend and begin harvesting leaves early. Run the harvesting decision simulation and the Harvest bingo card. Discuss how much to take and how much to leave growing.
Week 4
Preserve & Share
Preserve the harvest — sun drying, smoking, salting, fermentation/gari, ash + airtight storage, cool storage. Complete the Food Preservation Workbook and the family pledge. Each household teaches one more.
Coach Addison: If your real garden is on a different timeline, follow the garden — the schedule serves the plants, not the other way around.
Skills It Builds
MyHealthy Africa is more than gardening. Here is what your children are really learning.
Area
What they practice
Science
How beans fix nitrogen to feed maize; how plants grow; why food spoils; how drought-resistant crops survive; how illness spreads and is prevented.
Health
Nutrition (Vitamin A in sweet potato), food safety (aflatoxin on undried maize), and Ebola prevention habits — clean hands, no face-touching, spacing, reporting illness.
Math
Measuring plots and spacing, counting and estimating a harvest, planning how much to eat now versus preserve, and tracking storage times.
Life skills
Planning ahead, teamwork, caring for living things, looking after family, courage in a hard season, and teaching others (Share It).
Coach Addison says
More than a garden
A child who can plan a harvest, keep food safe, and protect their family from sickness carries those skills for life. The garden is the classroom — but the lessons go home and stay.
Share It
For Parents at Home
You do not need a classroom to keep this going. Simple ways to extend MyHealthy Africa at home:
Grow a little at home. Even a few beans or a sweet potato vine by the door lets a child practice what they learned.
Cook together. Let your child help prepare a preserved food and explain how it was saved.
Look it up. Open the A–Z Foods from Africa booklet and learn one new food a week as a family.
Practice the safety habits as a household — wash hands before and after, keep hands from faces — until they are second nature.
Share It. Help your child teach one neighbour or relative a single skill. Teaching is how it sticks.
Our Family Pledge
As a family, we will grow and save our food well so no harvest is wasted, keep the safety habits that protect us during this outbreak, and share one skill we have learned with one other household.
Child's name
Parent / guardian signature
Date
A word from Coach Addison
MyHealthy Africa
Thank you for walking beside your children through this season. Schools may close, but learning, growing, and caring for one another never have to stop. Plant, preserve, protect — and share. The whole village grows stronger together.