DIG first started doing home gardens in 2006 thanks to Koumba! While Koumba was being inspired by DIG’s training, we were being inspired by her. It was she who asked for and received DIG’s first Home Garden. She asked if we could help her with some of the initial seed money to get a garden started in the small space behind her home. Koumba knew she could feed her family from this otherwise discarded space and would use her newly learned skills to do so. Despite having very little space to work with, Koumba transformed her once trash-filled backyard into a lush garden. “I eat the vegetables I grow, especially the carrots and mustard, and I put basil leaves in my tea. My children help me with the watering, but I do most of the work myself.”
Since Koumba, Home Gardens have been a critical part of DIG’s programming with DIG helping to develop over 5,000 Home Gardens throughout sub-saharan Africa. The Home Garden is more that a garden, it empowers individuals and families by;
- providing easy access to nutritious vegetables,
- increasing income through the sale of excess produce,
- creating therapeutic home-based activities,
- building community by creating a model that neighbors can duplicate,
- teaching valuable life and technical skills to their children and neighbors,
- recycling local garbage and manures, and
- adding beauty to the home.
Eunice is one of 400 farmers who developed home gardens this past year, thanks to the support of the DIG community. Eunice is young widow living in Waware village, Migori County with five children aged six to 18, three of whom still need her full support. Like many local people she is living with HIV. Every day she allocates the two hours from 6 am to 8 am to her vegetables. After only three months of DIGging, Eunice is already making a profit from her home garden. ‘We can’t eat all the vegetables that are now sprouting up ourselves! Customers are coming here to buy from me. And I don’t have to buy vegetables from the market any more – I am healthy and fully self-sufficient.’
Please help DIG reach more people like Eunice and Koumba in 2015 by
