Her students had nowhere to grow crops. Then she saw a rundown piece of land

When Ramona Mercieca visited a sick friend at the Gozo hospital a couple of years ago, a rundown swathe of soil on hospital grounds caught her eye, and she could not stop thinking about it.

She had been teaching her middle school students how to collect data from the ground. Theory lessons were going great, but the school’s concrete footprint meant she had no space where her students could get their hands dirty and experience the soil and the joy of working the land and watching crops grow.

And there, in that small garden on hospital grounds, a seed was planted: what if she could get permission from the hospital authorities and bring her students to observe, collect data and work that garden?

The community garden plot

Today, Mercieca’s seed has grown into a vibrant community hub where her students and 13 families now grow their own organic vegetables in plots the size of a kitchen-living room.

Mercieca’s initiative is now flourishing, and it even earned her a ‘Pride of Gozo’ award last month.

All the nominees and winners of this year’s Pride of Gozo Awards during the ceremony held at Queen Mary University of London Gozo Campus, last week. Photo: Max Xuereb

From the class onto the grass

Mercieca is a geography teacher, but she also coordinates EkoSkola in Gozo as well as the international Globe Program – an environmental science educational programme that provides students with the opportunity to engage in hands-on learning outside the classroom.

“Every year we pick a theme, and two years ago the weather was particularly dry, so we decided to investigate the soil and collect data from it,” she told Times of Malta.

‘You should see the looks on their faces,’ Ramona Mercieca says about her students as they embrace farming.

“The students spent time measuring soil moisture and the surface temperature of the soil using infrared instruments, to understand how the dry conditions were impacting the ground. And that’s where the idea came from: what if this could be turned into an initiative to grow our own crops, to reduce our carbon footprint, eat healthy and protect the Maltese product?”

But Mercieca lacked a place to apply her students’ findings. After spotting that garden at the Gozo hospital – a patch with some trees and covered in wild grass – she found hope.

She got the necessary permission from the school before requesting a meeting with Health Minister Jo Etienne Abela, who backed the idea instantly. Mercieca said that with his support and with the help of hospital CEO Carmen Ogilvie Galea, the dream began to take physical shape in no time.

Memories are made by experiences, not theories

Before a single seed was planted, Mercieca took her students to the site to conduct an audit. They mapped out water sources and measured the space to see whether the initiative was actually viable.  By the following scholastic year, the project was in full swing.

The hospital CEO installed water taps and a hose pipe, and hospital gardeners helped by ploughing the land to prepare it for the families.

Families of students got a plot each to grow their own crops.

The land was too big for the students to work it all on their own, so Mercieca issued an expression of interest to parents, offering 13 plots for families to work. She kept one plot for her students and handed the other plots to the parents who wanted to join in the experience.

And that is how the small hospital garden was turned into a thriving space where families and students grow and harvest their own food.

“You should see the joy in the children’s eyes when they cook and eat something they grew themselves. Some children had never tasted the Maltese green bean, for instance,” she said.

A harvest of memories

Mercieca set ground rules as well. No pesticides are allowed, and only local, seasonal crops can be grown to ensure water use remains sustainable.

Today, the garden is a thriving ecosystem where families share tools, seeds and produce from a communal tool shed. The impact has reached far beyond the classroom; residents of the nearby elderly home now watch the children work from their windows.

Elderly residents living in a home nearby love to watch the young generation fall in love with farming.

“You can see some of them are genuinely happy to see the younger generation embracing farming,” Mercieca said.

She even channelled the garden’s success into a bilingual recipe book sponsored by the hospital CEO, Fil-Ġnien man-Nanna fil-Ħarifa u fix-Xitwa (In the Garden with Grandma in Autumn and Winter) to teach others how to cook what they grow.

She’s now working on a second edition, including recipes with spring and summer crops.

Ramona Mercieca even published a book with recipes using seasonal, local crops.

For this extraordinary effort, she was honoured as a champion at this year’s Pride of Gozo Awards. The awards are organised every year by the Rotary Club of Gozo in collaboration with Times of Malta to acknowledge the work of Gozo residents who go out of their way to make their community a better place. Mercieca took home the Environmental Award.

But for Mercieca, the award is secondary to the sight of her students getting excited over a ladybird or tasting a Maltese green bean for the first time.

“Memories are made by experiences, not theories,” she says. “And that’s what we’re making in our garden: etching memories in their hearts and minds.”

Some children had never tasted the Maltese green bean

“Watching the children get excited is the best award I can get.”

She says she would now like to see the idea spread to other communities as well, and she has already started work in her own community of Munxar, where she is collaborating with mayor Damien Spiteri to identify a parcel of public land for the residents.

She is working with the Sannat school, where children from Munxar attend, to develop the site. Starting in the next scholastic year, the land will be worked by Munxar students, with the specific goal of keeping the garden as close to their homes as possible.

Families tending to their plots of land.

By ensuring the site is within walking or cycling distance, Mercieca aims to promote sustainable and healthy mobility while giving the children a space where they can continue to bridge the gap between classroom theory and hands-on environmental action.

The Pride of Gozo

Other Gozo residents and organisations took home awards at The Pride of Gozo ceremony last month.

Mark Thorogood and the Gozo SPCA won the Community Award for their decades-long work for animal well-being, Betty Hanley-Lee won the Beacon of Hope Award for her unwavering support to cancer patients, and the Gozo Crafty Ladies took home the Volunteer of the Year Award for knitting hats, scarves and other clothing items for the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), the maternity ward, refugee camps and missionary projects.

The Business of the Year Award went to Gozo-based craft beer company Lord Chambray, the Spirit of Gozo Award went to long-time musician and composer Peter Thomas, who voluntarily plays in churches and leads a community choir in Gozo, and the Professional of the Year award went to John Xuereb Dingli – a general practitioner who has been a household name for over four decades.

Young singer and model Mariah Agius took home the David Carrington Award, which is given to youths who demonstrate future potential, and Leanne Borg and a team of volunteers got the President’s Award for their work in supporting local charities throughout the year. Twice a year, she and her band of bakers transform their kitchens into bustling workshops, creating holiday treats for those in need.