January 21, 2009

After helping build the TASO AIDS Clinic garden, many patients wanted a home garden of their own. So, we have started with the first of our home garden projects at an HIV patients home named Florence. Florence contracted HIV 13 years ago and works sensitizing people in her community to HIV. She has started an HIV support group within her community and these members are the ones participating in the building of each home garden.
Florence mobilized her group of 29 HIV patients in the community to come help build her garden. It was great to see so many interested members learning how easy it is to grow nutritious vegetables. A variety of vegetables will aid in the effectiveness of their medications to keep them healthy, which staying healthy most important thing to do when suffering from HIV. We have taught them how to grow plants using recycled materials such as rice sacks and old buckets as some of the members have no land to farm. The group is now empowered with the knowledge of building their own gardens. We will help them with tools and seeds but they are now able to help each other build the gardens. We have given them a reference manual for maintaining the gardens which outlines organic pesticides and fertilizers, seed saving, nutrition value, etc…
We will continue with advice and support with each new home garden, but ultimately the gardens will be built and maintained by the HIV group members
We have started harvesting various crops at the orphanage garden and continue harvesting and planting at our other garden sites. Many of these vegetables are new to many palates so we have started cooking classes on site while providing information on the crops nutritional value. We are excited to have Sarah Koch, from DIG, in Jinja the next few weeks helping us with our projects and cooking classes!
Next week we will be at the Budondo HIV Health Clinic garden overseeing and helping with the ISSB water harvesting tank which will provide water for the Budondo garden. Currently, the managers of our garden sites are forced to walk long distances to fetch water to keep the gardens stay alive during this hot and dry season. These tanks, fed by gutters from the roofs of buildings, will hold up to 5000 Litres of water for the gardens use. DIG is funding the water tank project and Haileybury Youth Trust (HYT), a non-profit based out of England, will be using their environmentally friendly brick building technology to build the tanks on site. We will explain the technology as the project gets underway on Monday.