School-to-Home Knowledge Transfers Through Community Gardens: Promoting Food Security and Nutrition in Senegalese Villages, Ethiopia

Community gardens have been proposed as effective platforms for promoting food security and nutrition education in rural communities of Senegal and Ethiopia. The study employs mixed methods including surveys, interviews, and observational data collection in two Senegalese villages and one Ethiopian village. Quantitative analysis focuses on dietary diversity scores (DDS) and qualitative analysis examines participant perceptions of knowledge transfer. In both locations, school-to-home knowledge transfers were observed to improve dietary diversification among participants, with a significant increase from baseline levels in the surveyed households. The findings suggest that community gardens can serve as powerful tools for promoting sustainable food security and nutrition practices through effective knowledge transfer mechanisms between schools and communities. Future research should investigate longer-term impacts of these programmes and explore scaling-up successful models to broader rural populations.