Yara’s 5-month Food Innovation Internship with Urban Harvest
Yara studies Food Innovation at the HAS in the Netherlands. She needed to do an internship as part of her study program – anywhere she wanted. She went completely out of her comfort zone and decided a Food Innovation Internship with Urban Harvest in Cape Town would be the perfect opportunity for her. After five months of being here, she is now sharing her experiences with us!
Setting up a New Project
For Yara, the Food Innovation internship wasn’t just a way to explore a new country. It was also a mandatory part of her studies to complete an internship. That meant she was able to set up an entirely new project to work on in the five months she was there. Through Urban Harvest, the project was carried out at the Observatory Junior School, which has one of Urban Harvest’s school gardens. The food garden is used for eco-education and to provide vegetables for the school lunch. Yara discovered that apart from the school lunch, most of the children eat a lot of sugar and don’t have a lot of knowledge about healthy food.
That’s why she created a lesson plan for the school and Urban Harvest to use. This included five innovative and practical lessons to teach children about food and involve them in the garden in a fun and memorable way. Yara made sure that after every lesson the children got something to take home with them so that the parents were also involved.
Healthy Beetroot Brownies
Well, fun and memorable it was! She designed the lessons and put them into practice. From making healthy brownies with beetroot from the school garden, to teaching the children about how to put together a healthy lunchbox, to designing an infographic about food safety. The children loved it – and so did she! Even now that Yara is gone, Urban Harvest offers the lesson plans to different schools. Talk about making an impact!
Hugging Elephants and Watching the Sunset
South Africa has everything you could be looking for – nature, the beaches, the cities, the mountains… In her free time, Yara happily made use of that by going hiking, surfing, renting a scooter, or watching the sunset from one of the beautiful spots closeby. You won’t ever get bored in South Africa: there’s always markets and festivals going on! From the coffee festival to the beer festival, and from the Oranjezicht farmer’s market to Old Biscuit Mill. She also went for a weekend trip with Hotspots2c to Oudtshoorn. There, she did a couple of safaris and hugged with elephants. It was one of the highlights of her trip!
Other Interesting Reads
- Why do an Ethical Internship?
- Is it Safe to do an Internship in South Africa?
- My First Experience Abroad in an NGO Management Internship
