Building strong citizens for a strong country

The Young Farmers Club is a lot of work. We planted many flowers and many papayas. We even have our own green house. Some of the papayas are not growing. Maybe we are not watering the plants that much. That’s the reason why we are going to have automatic sprinklers. When I planted my flowers, there weren’t a lot of flowers growing. When I was done planting the flowers seeds I watered them, which made the flowers seeds go all over the place. When you plant seeds, don’t spray it with water so fast because the seeds might come out. You should water the soil before you plant any seeds. But you shouldn’t water it to much because the plant might drown. We also planted vegetables like onions, tomatoes, and cucumbers.

This past week the Saipan Tribune published an article by Rick Villages about heroes, in particular the Navy Seals, and a letter was published by Agnes McPhetres about members of an organization making the organization strong in the same way individual fibers of a rope make the rope strong. The self-reliance goals of the Aquaculture Science & Self-reliance project are based on Ms. McPhetres’ theory that strong treads make for a strong rope, or that strong self-reliant families make a village strong, and strong villages make strong states and countries.

The students in the SVES Young Farmers Club enjoy working hard as they learn skills that can make them more self-reliant. The students learning these skills are the future Navy Seals who will learn the skills to survive in any climate, or the teacher who will open a school on one of the Northern Islands, or the future politician who will rely on their character and will stand against the temptation to go against their personal values. Navy war ships appear to be single ships; however, they are made up of compartments that can be sealed and operate independently from each other. A community made of self-reliant individuals will better survive difficult times in the same way a war ship can continue to fight after taking major hits.
Many of the pirates in the Gulf of Aden are former fishermen, who find it easier to steal from others than to earn a living by fishing. However, there are programs being developed and implemented that have the potential to be more deadly to the pirate business than all of the U.S. and NATO warships. These programs include teaching villages self-reliance through developing their own water supplies, and building tilapia farms. The tilapia provide protein and the fish waste is used for fertilizer to grow plants. Independent, self reliant villages do not need ships to bring emergency food relief, or aid trucks that must pay a tax to bandits, and most importantly the self-reliant villages are teaching their children to enjoy being self-reliant through hard work. [I][B](Salofi Welch)[/B]

Salofi Welch is a student at the San Vicente Elementary School and is a member of the Young Farmers Club.[/I]