Centro Sabiá and UFRPE certify 100 students from the Marias School – Women and Urban Farming

By Rosa Sampaio
Sabiá Center journalist

Last Wednesday (17), 100 women and men from five communities in Greater Recife took part in a graduation ceremony for the Marias School course – Women and Urban Farming, ending the training cycle of the project carried out by the Sabiá Center. The celebration and symbolic rites took place in the Noble Hall of the Federal Rural University of Pernambuco (UFRPE), with the presence of authorities such as the vice rector Maria do Socorro de Lima, the general coordinator of Sabiá, Maria Cristina Aurelian, Prof. José Nunes, professor at UFRPE, the director of the Department for the Promotion of Adequate and Healthy Food of the MDS, Patrícia Gentil and the state coordinator of the Movement of Homeless Workers, MTST, Felipe Cavalcante.

During the ceremony, a video was launched which tells the story of the process of conceiving and running the school from the point of view of the women farmers, with testimonies from some of the students about the almost two-year project. The video was produced by the Sabiá Center.

The students from the Marias School are part of the five gardens that the Sabiá Center accompanies in the communities of the women farmers: the garden of the Onze Negras Quilombola Community, in Cabo de Santo Agostinho; and in Recife, the Dandara Popular Agroecological Garden in Peixinhos, the Cozinha Solidária Garden in Vila Santa Luzia, in Torre, the Sonho de Viver Popular Agroecological Garden, in Boa Viagem, and the Margaridas Garden, in Jiquiá.

The Centro Sabiá’s initiative is in partnership with the UFRPE’s Agroecology and Peasantry Center and the MTST, and with the support of the National Urban Agriculture Program, of the Ministry of Development and Social Assistance, Family and Fight against Hunger – MDS/Federal Government. The action is the result of a parliamentary amendment by federal deputy Túlio Gadelha.