Reap Life DIG

A Partnership Worth Watering

2012-02-28T08:47:00.000-08:00

Watering at Lwala

In the US, the average life span is
80 years old.
In Kenya, the average life span is
58 years old.
In Migori,where Lwala Hospital is located, the average life span is
40 years old.

In the US, the HIV prevalence is <1%.
In Kenya it is 7%.
In Nyanza province it is 15%.
In Migori District, Nyanza
1out of 4 people are HIV positive.

Fredand Milton Ochieng were born and raised in Lwala. Their parents, who have now both passed away from HIV,supported the two brothers to study medicine in the United States. Now the two medical students are givingback to their community and formed the Lwala Community Alliance (LCA).

DIGand LCA share a common ethos about community development as well as a sharedvision. To DIG, this is what makesa true partnership. Together, weare working on improving the nutrition and health of the whole Lwalacommunity.

Taking a training break at Lwala

DIGhas implemented a program to bring improved farming knowledge and new practicesto the Lwala community. Thisproject includes the development of a vegetable garden on the hospital propertyto act as a demonstration plot for the community and to supply vegetables tothe hospital and community. Additionally,we just began to expand our work in the community and are setting up two newschool demonstration gardens at Kuna and Kameji Primary Schools.

New Sprouts at Lwala

DIGfocuses on providing the types of vegetables needed for people living with HIVbecause the current treatments for the disease are most effective when takenwith a highly nutritious diet. Thedemonstration garden at Lwala Community Hospital also has three areas forcommunity groups to have hands on training in organic agriculture techniquesthat ensure that water sources, soils, and produce stay free of chemicals andare often cheaper for farmers as they use locally available materials. Thethree groups currently training are the Umama Salama group, which work ascommunity health workers to encourage safe motherhood and birthing practices;the HIV support group; and a youth group made up of young men and women, manyof whom do have enough money to stay in school but can use the skills gainedthrough this program to earn their way back to school.

LCA Partners with founders Fred and Milton Ochieng

Workingin global health and community development it is critical to address all of theneeds of a community. This is whymultidimensional partnerships are so important. Partnering with LCA has allowed us to have a larger impactat Lwala. For LCA by partneringwith DIG, they have been able to address critical community needs around foodsecurity, nutritional and economic well-being.

Onecommunity at a time, LCA and DIG are working towards a vision; it doesnot matter where you are born you will still be able to live a long and healthylife.

DIG's new digs!

2012-02-27T12:29:00.000-08:00

It's official! We have moved into our new offices in Midtown Atlanta!

We owe a big thanks to Bill Watts (DIG Board Member), Judy O'Brien (Head of Sutherland's Pro Bono and Public Service Committees) and Sutherland Law Firm.

Sutherland Law Firm in Atlanta has given us 2 Pro Bono offices on the 16th floor. Our productivity has already increased and we can not show enough gratitude to Judy and Bill who helped facilitate this arrangement.

If anyone is ever in Atlanta for work or pleasure, we would love for you to stop by and visit us!

Executive's Office

Deputy's Office

"12 Hours in the Day"

2012-02-27T10:23:00.001-08:00

It's exciting to usher in another year with Development in Gardening and have so much to look forward to! We have come a long way since our meager beginning 6 years ago, and I'm proud that we have not lost our grassroots focus or sacrificed our core values in order to survive. With a strong Board of Directors and an inspiring staff, DIG is poised for significant growth in 2012.

Our project in Lwala has been particularly meaningful for me as DIG continues to explore how deeply we can impact a community. Thanks to a partnership with the Segal Family Foundation, IYF Starbucks, Rotary and Lwala Community Alliance; we are expanding on our established hospital garden to incorporate two rural primary schools. Together, we will work with a handful of men and women from the Lwala Hospital garden to train teachers and students at the schools on how to develop and sustain their own DIG gardens.

The thought of being able to increase the capacity of the hospital's community impact, to witness our participants' ability to teach DIG's model, and to incorporate DIG's gardens into the education and feeding program of two under resourced schools is incredibly exciting! My hope is to see DIG continue to grow in ways just like this, where the reach of these gardens and what they are able to provide is endless.

We have a lot before us and whenever the mountain tops seem out of reach or I need a reminder of what is possible from DIG's simple garden initiative, I think about one of DIG's local facilitators, Kayima Patrick, who has turned around a once stigmatized HIV positive community into a community of experts. Their group actively nurtures their families and themselves while standing witness to potential of a seed planted in fertile soil. I've shared his story on so many occasions and once asked him how he and his group have been able to achieve so much with seemingly so little. He replied to me with a laugh saying, "Sarah, there are 12 hours in every day." So whenever I need that extra boost that we can take this initiative further and become a significant response to the global health crisis facing those living with HIV I think of him and all the resources we have before us. If he sees a day as 12 hours of potential, can't we all?

Rona, a Positive Example from Kafue

2012-02-24T12:14:00.003-08:00

Rona with Kiki

Rona first joined Railway clinic in Kafue,Zambia with a Mothers to Mothers (M2M) program. Railway’s M2M program helpseducate new mothers living with HIV how to prevent mother to childtransmission.

Rona is a mother of six. Her youngest child Kiki continues tofall short of the developmental norms of children her age. Rona became interested in the DIGprogram at Railway Clinic so that she might learn about nutrition and how toproduce her own food in order to help Kiki gain a satisfactory weight.

Since joining the program, Rona hasincorporated many different kinds of vegetables into her and her children’sdiets. Kiki now eats mashed carrots or sweet potatoes with her porridge in themornings. Rona also always makessure to add whichever vegetables she and the other women in the DIG program harvesteach week into her mid-day or evening meals.

Rona in the Railway Garden

Rona has become quite an exceptional gardenerand leader. She first started as anew participant with very little knowledge in organic gardeningtechniques. She quickly mastered thesenew skills from Catherine and DIG’s training sessions and has now become ateacher for her community. Not only is Rona helping herself and her children becominghealthier but she is also helping her community, neighbors, and family byteaching them what she has learned. Rona supervises two community gardens in anearby neighborhood, organized and helped develop her church’s garden to raisemoney for their various charity acts, and is currently teaching her mother howto helping to build a home garden.

Because of Rona’s dedication, she was votedin as the Chairwoman of Railway Clinic’s DIG and m2m Women’s Club. The womenhave raised enough money to open a bank account (which is no easy feat in Kafue,Zambia). With her share of the money, Rona plans on starting a bread-makingbusiness of various types, i.e. banana bread, pumpkin bread, etc.

Ronaexpresses her gratitude for all of the help DIG has given to her and herfamily, to her American friends who worked in the garden with her, and to those who continually support DIG's work.

Update from the Buwala Orphanage!

2011-11-22T07:08:00.001-08:00

A quick note from Paul, the director of the Buwala Orphanage in Jinja, Kenya. DIG established the Buwala Orphanage Garden in 2009.

...Now about the home, the kids are very fine, and they are soon leaving for their holiday in the beginning of December.

With the Garden, we had a lot of rainfall! We have been enjoying our greens very well, but due to the heavy rains, the crops are being harvested quite quickly due to the rapid growth.

Planting at the Orphanage

As I write this, we are replacing other crops, this time French beans in order to help the garden with nitrogen due to bacterias at their roots.

I am sure there will be many crops that will still be blooming in the middle of December. But I am sorry too that we have had some diseases recently which have stunted our tomatoes, eggplants and peppers. So that is why i have been growing much more sukuma wicki (African collard) that we have just finished. So when we do our crop rotation, we are going to plant french beans as our vegetables, then we will be able to replace other crops when the land has regained some nutrients.

Thank you so much for the help, we love that you will visit our home again soon.

Yours,
Paul, Rose and the kids

Paul and his kids

Meet Faith Owuor

2011-11-21T12:33:00.001-08:00

Faith received her bachelor of Science Degree in Agricultureat Egerton University in Kenya. She has experience in organic farming,community organizing, rural development and project management. Shehas worked for several different non-profits, including UNICEF and is dedicatedto making each organization better than when she found it.

Before joiningDIG, Faith worked in Sudan with Vétérinaires Sans Frontières (VSF) leadingcommunity mobilization, farmer training, agroforestry and livestockproduction.

Faith is from the same region where our new DIG sitesare located. She speaks the local language Luo, Kiswahili and Englishfluently. She is excited to give back to her home region and share heragricultural skills with her community.

Faith is on the right with her son, niece and sister!

While working with DIG is veryimportant to Faith, her most important occupation is being a mother! Pleasewelcome the wonderful Faith Owuor to the DIG Team!

DIG 'Garden TV' in Kenya

2011-11-21T12:04:00.001-08:00

By Catherine Magill, DIG Program Coordinator

When you go on safari in Africa, and you’rerelaxing on the porch of your tent watching the hippos and crocodiles in theriver or the zebra and gazelles on the plain in front of you, your safari hostswill jokingly say that you are watching ‘Bush TV’. For those without access tosafaris, DIG is undertaking to launch a new channel called ‘Garden TV’. Lastweek at Crossroads Springs Institute, a primary school for orphans and childrenaffected by HIV and AIDS, we discovered that one mzungu (foreigner), oneteacher, two groundsmen, and twenty-five students digging garden beds providedhours of spellbinding entertainment for more than one hundred students towatch!

While not without their challenges – TIA(This Is Africa), after all – DIG’s first seven weeks back in Kenya, after anextended hiatus, have been incredibly exciting and rewarding. With the supportof the Segal Family Foundation, we are initiating custom-designed agriculturalprograms for two local Kenyan organizations dedicated to helping underservedrural populations. In October, we began converting an almost one-acre piece ofland in front of Lwala Community Hospital into a farm providing food for thehospital and practice plots for a Farmer Field School to train community groupsin sustainable agriculture for improved income generation. In November, we continuedon to Crossroads Springs, where we are laying the groundwork for a system oflocal food production that will reduce overall food expenses for the school aswell as starting a small vegetable garden – the site of Garden TV programming –on the school grounds to train students in horticulture and nutrition.

Our vision in both of these initiatives is topartner with communities that have identified food- and agriculture-relatedneeds, work with local leaders to design a program that can meet those needs,train leaders and community members how to implement the program, assist withstart-up costs and program planning, and provide technical support – all withthe ultimate goal of developing the skills, knowledge, experience, andinspiration necessary for these communities to meet their own needs.

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Mama Hanna’s brilliant yellow taffeta dress,complete with puffed sleeves and a generously gathered skirt, brought the sundown from the sky and right into the middle of our field. As her large,leathery hands gripped the wooden handle and lifted it above her head, shegrinned and brought the djembe down with a satisfying thwack that sunk into thesoft soil. I squatted in front of the garden bed that she was preparing andbegan snapping my camera, looking for the perfect juxtaposition of glowingtaffeta, lush green fields, fresh soil, and blue sky. And Mama Hanna’s smile.

Only the day before, I was doubled over inriotous laughter along with the other members of ‘Support Group’ as Mama Hannaoffered a demonstration of how a man with a too-large tongue speaks. Her cheekspuffed with the imaginary tongue, and the supposed words came out in alow-pitched slur of grunts and puffs. Djembes dropped and diggers collapsedlike dominoes, laughter bringing them crumpling to the ground. While tossingspadefuls of soil and fighting rocky hardpans in the rather intense process of preparingdouble-dug garden beds, the entertainment continued without a break. Sweattrickled and sometimes poured down temples, occasionally slowed in its downwardmovement by the heavy wrinkles of an aged face, but the swinging of the djembesnever ceased. When the sun shone down without making a shadow, twenty beds werefinished, and only then could the tools be put to rest and slurping of therequisite cups of steaming milk tea commence.

“What do you expect to benefit from thistraining?” we had asked the group of twenty seated before us a few weeksearlier. We were attempting to elicit some sliver of their actual thoughtsbefore the all-too-common repetition of “what I am supposed to say” phrasesbegan coming out. Ten representatives of the women’s group Umama Salama (safemothers women’s group) and ten representatives of the HIV support group offeredtheir responses.

“I want to earn more money.”

“I want to learn something new.”

“I want to produce more on my land.”

“I want to grow something that I can sell in themarket.”

“I want to learn more about horticulture.”

“I want to grow watermelons.”

After further discussion about what thetraining would actually entail, what could be expected and what DIG wouldrequire, we agreed that the representatives would return to their largergroups, explain the program, and the groups would select ten individuals toparticipate in a six month training covering sustainable agriculture,marketing, small business development, and more.

Perhaps the twenty people who signed up withvisions of free rubber boots and DIG t-shirts dancing before their eyes weren’texactly expecting those first few days of intense digging and sweating, buttheir enthusiasm hasn’t waned. They appear faithfully every Monday and Thursdayat 9 a.m., carrying basins of cow manure on their heads and bundles of greenmaterials for compost in their hands; they recount the previous meeting’slesson topic in great detail (Mama Hanna’s large fingers adopt a surprisingfinesse as she exquisitely pantomimes how to sprinkle just the right number ofseeds into the nursery bed and cover them with just the right amount of soil);rain or shine, as they are accustomed from years in the fields, they dig, rake,plant, transplant, and attend to their crops; and with careful direction fromFaith and Tobias, DIG’s new project assistant and community agriculturetrainer, they fill out their logbooks, recording their activities and trackinginformation that will help them determine the most effective means to achievingthe high yields they hope to see.

Volunteering in Kafue

2011-11-18T06:49:00.001-08:00

By: Damian, a DIG volunteer who has been in Kafue for the last 6 months with his wife, Ali.


Kafue District Hospital Garden

Kafue's DIG project has been hard work with great rewards. We have met (and hopefully empowered) wonderful people who genuinely seem to enjoy the work and camaraderie. Four main gardens have been established at the local medical clinics with satellite home gardens spreading from each of these. I believe that a solid core group of women have really mastered the gardening and nutrition techniques they've been taught and will truly benefit from this enhancement in their well being and diet in the long run.

Patricia, Rona and other Railway Clinic Garden Members

Ali and myself, have had a really great impact in Kasengale and ZC compound with new home gardens since Catherine left. Patricia and Rona (a few of Railway Clinic's charter members who several of you have met) have been fantastic and I really believe have applied the knowledge and skills Catherine and ourselves have taught and run with it. Both are motivated individuals who are now going out into their community and making a difference.

Dayness (far left) and Nagongwe Nutrition Group

Nangongwe Clinic, which has been our biggest challenge in regards to attendance and motivation with the garden, has been greatly assisted by Dyness (one of the most colorful and entertaining women in Zambia) as our group cheerleader! It is hard not to be excited about work with Dyness pumping you up. She is in charge of the nutrition program at the clinic and has been instrumental in our cooking demonstrations and nutrition classes for underweight under 5's.

On a personal note, Ali and I have learned a great deal about ourselves individually and as a couple. Our time here in Zambia has been eye opening and we have truly enjoyed ourselves. We have had the opportunity to make lifelong friends, travel and experience this beautiful country, and get a little dirty and DIG!

Damian and Ali at Victoria Falls

Ali and I are returning to Ft. Collins, Colorado December 7th and will both be returning to school. Ali is pursuing a second bachelor's in Graphic Design and I am returning for a Master's degree in Beverage Business Management (i.e. I will be a Master Brewer brewing the world's best beverage; Beer!). We are really excited to return home but the leaving is bittersweet.

I hope things are going great for you and look forward to speaking with you soon!

Cheers,

Damian

Zikomo Zambia

2011-08-11T07:07:00.000-07:00

Every summer I make a pilgimage to a select handful of DIG's garden in Africa. By the time the trip comes around I am usually more than a touch exhausted as it's always trailing an inspiring yet emotionally draining series of fundraisers and a hectic spring. So you can imagine how I felt this year when at 9pm the night before I boarded a plane for Zambia my computer's hard drive crashed, I got the black screen of death.

So, after a restless night sleep worrying about all of the half written documents, I woke up with only one thing to do. I abandoned my computer for the summer and dug out my passport to make the 20+ hour journey across the world. And, as exhausted as I was when I stepped off that plane I could not have prepared myself for the weeks ahead of me. Without the obligation of the computer, I was free to choose Zambia. I didn't have to keep one eye always awake to the West. I could let my out of office status reply to my emails, let my voicemail answer the phone. I knew it would all be waiting for me when I returned, but this one month was my time to be fully present in Zambia, and it was exactly what I needed.

If, after all, I am to spend the year charged with telling DIG's story and making the connection for people as to why this work is so important and why their support is so desperately needed then I better believe it. I better be uplifted by it and feel it pulling me from the inside. With my responsibilities, I too often forget the beautiful simplicity of what makes DIG so great, and that is its people.

So thank you Zambia, Zikomo. Thank you for forcing me to put my computer down, shut off my cell phone and reengage with the people we serve. Thank you for making my daily mission to know you not just by your photographs but by your embrace. To know the inside of your homes and the tug of your children's hand at the bottom of my dress. To memorize your laughs and your stories. To remember what it's like to sit quietly and listen.

And thank you Catherine Magill, our project manager who has been living in Zambia for the past year leading our projects there. You have done an amazing job and you are my inspiration. You have tilled the soil alongside brave women and men and you embody so much of what I strive to be and what I hope DIG can continue to live up to. I was inspired by your work ethic and patience, your vision and flexibility. You, unlike so many have the rare ability to live out your life in a way few others would even have the courage to try.

Being in Zambia this summer, working in the gardens with my friends and co-workers I remembered what it was like to live without a computer attached to my side. I remembered what it was like not having to plan a fundraiser or write a grant, but to live and breath the simplicity of DIG's mission. To know that there are beautiful calloused hands behind these vibrant gardens. And to trust the thousands of supporters back home who lift this work up that they will continue to be there, not because of something they heard at a fundraiser, but because they are moved by the miracle of a seed waking up. And because they know what it's like to bite into a chemical free tomato and feel the power a nutritious meal activate their bodies and minds.

DIG is doing important work, and I believe in it's power to transform. I believe it because it continues to transform me.

When I got back to the states my computer had been fixed. A new hardrive was installed and my external back-up did just what it was supposed to, brought my machine back to life as if nothing ever happened. But it did happen, and I believe it happened just as it was supposed to. And again I am forever grateful.

Sarah Koch
DIG's Executive Director

A Field Report from Zambia by Catherine Magill

2011-08-11T07:05:00.001-07:00

Sorry for the long absence from DIG postings. The summer thus far has been a time of activity, transitions, and changes. Volunteers Damian and Ali Schlereth arrived in April to help out with the work in Kafue until early 2012. A wonderful group of four DIG supporters joined us for two weeks in June. Volunteer Sarah Sahlaney finished her commitment here to begin preparing for graduate studies in agriculture and development at UC-Davis in the fall. In late June, DIG's Deputy Director Noah Derman and I toured potential project sites for our upcoming grant in Kenya, and finally our year of financial support from CIDRZ/UAB came to a conclusion at the end of June. At the moment we’re evaluating possible opportunities to continue work in Zambia with other organizations as well as planning our return to Kenya beginning around October.

The DIG Team, Donor-Trippers, and the Amazing Women of Railway

For me, the “donor-teering” trip in June, along with extended time with Sarah and Noah, has probably been the highlight of the year. I love the work I do, but often it feels lonely and isolated, since we have no DIG in-country office and very few staff. I find great encouragement in having on-the-ground support as well as a flow of new ideas and input that energize and motivate me. In addition, it was a privilege to share the gardens and the wonderful people who work in them with the equally wonderful people who support DIG’s work from abroad. Eric, Maggie, David, and Art – along with Sarah and Noah – spent plenty of hours swinging picks and shovels and had a nice array of blisters to show for it! They ate quite a few plates of nsima, Zambia’s local maize porridge staple, and tasted sweet potato leaves, fried small whole fish, beans, pumpkin leaves with groundnuts, and a variety of other traditional dishes. Unfortunately we didn’t get to sample fried caterpillars…. In addition to contributing to the development of the gardens and tasting Zambian cuisine, they spent a significant amount of time with the garden participants in Kafue, visiting them in their homes and getting to know them on a personal level. The individual connection with people is what makes my work not really seem like work at all, and it is the heart and soul of every DIG project.

It follows from there that the home gardens we have been working on since spring have been my favorite part of the year. Community gardens are exciting because they are large and generate notable quantities of produce and income, but they are frequently difficult to manage and often suffer from leadership and organizational challenges. Home gardens, on the other hand, are less complicated and are more likely to make a direct impact on individual and family nutrition. They also allow me to spend time in people’s homes, get to know their families, and experience firsthand the reality of the challenges that they face on a day-to-day basis. The following are some glimpses of life in Kafue.

Naomi's Garden

Naomi was one of the participants in a five-week-long (meeting one afternoon per week) organic gardening class I taught at Kafue Estates Clinic. She spoke no English, was extraordinarily thin, and although she sat close to the front every week, she didn’t seem to show any exceptional interest in the class. After we finished the class and divided into home gardening groups by location, I went to Soloboni, the compound where she lives, to see her garden space and begin planning work. Soloboni is a wretchedly hot and dry area; in contrast to other compounds around Kafue, it has very few trees or shade. Stench-laden winds from tanning and yeast factories in the area blow through every afternoon, and ditches of foamy red and yellow factory run-off water flow through the vegetable and maize fields around the outskirts. A walk through the crumbling mud houses leaves one with a sense of rather abject and miserable poverty. Along with Naomi, five other class participants had vocally expressed interest in starting home gardens. On the first meeting day, only three showed up. And as the days wore on, Naomi was the one who was always there, watering and weeding, making compost, digging beds, and collecting grass to make a fence. Besides all of her regular house and garden work, she takes her malnourished daughter to the clinic every week – about forty-five minutes’ walk away – for distribution of Plumpynut (a high-calorie nutrition-dense food used to treat sever malnutrition) and nutrition education. Nevertheless, her garden is a model garden, with beautiful rows of sprouting green beans, spinach, beets, carrots, and other highly nutritious vegetables that she sells locally and uses for her family.

Boyd and His Beautiful Daughter Joyce

Boyd is in a very different situation to Naomi but one that is no less challenging. A few years ago he was working as a truck driver for a Zambian sugar company, earning a regular income and living in the city. Then he fell sick and soon became so ill that he could no longer work. He lay in bed for a year not knowing what was wrong with him. Someone finally suggested that he get tested for HIV, and when he and his wife went together, they both found out they were positive. After beginning anti-retrovirals, Boyd slowly regained his strength and eventually returned to his home village to take up farming. Although he had not been particularly involved with the Kafue Estates clinic or the ART (anti-retroviral therapy) support group there, when he heard that the group was involved in beginning a DIG demonstration garden, he eagerly came and offered his help. He and his friend Dixon did a large part of the manual labor in setting up the garden. Upon completion of the organic gardening class, Boyd immediately began converting a large field in front of his house into a market garden. He realized the opportunity to gain an income during the dry season through selling vegetables – in the rainy season he is busy farming maize and other staple crops – and in a matter of a few weeks he had planted almost a quarter of an acre and had recruited friends and neighbors to help him. He did so well that when a local businesswoman heard about his work, she went out to see his farm and promptly decided to hire him to set up an organic garden on her farm and train her workers.

Janet Collecting Seeds

If you walk out Boyd’s “driveway” – a dirt track through maize fields – and take the small path past the sweet potatoes, continue on to the mud hut with a passionfruit vine growing up the side and papaya trees ringing the garden, go farther through some high grasses and by a couple more huts, sooner or later you’ll come to a yard with a rectangular mud brick building and a couple of goat and chicken houses made of woven branches and raised up on stilts. In front of the yard you’ll find rows of garden beds stretching across an empty field, the beds filled with sprouting carrots, tomatoes, eggplants, and onions. This is Janet’s women’s group garden. Janet is an articulate and warm farming woman in her 50s. She contracted HIV a number of years ago and has been a leading force for HIV education in her small rural village. Of her own accord, without support or encouragement from NGOs or other outside programs, Janet started a group for women in her community affected by HIV. They met to discuss important health issues, the problem of stigma, and to begin developing income generating activities. Although initially many women were interested, when word got out that they were a group of HIV-positive women, almost half dropped out. With perseverance, dedication, and her natural compassion, Janet rebuilt the group and established it as a group for all kinds of women who want to work together to improve their lives and livelihoods. Janet has a passion for agriculture and long experience growing vegetables – she has had a dry season market garden every year since 1979 – and she quickly took to the idea of growing organically. She is currently in the process of converting her entire garden to double-dug, manure- and compost-fertilized beds and is looking forward to working together with Boyd and another local organic farmer to market organic vegetables in Kafue and Lusaka.

Patricia's Growing Home Garden

Patricia is a spunky young mother of three children, one of the original founders of the Railway clinic garden, and a faithful participant until a few months ago. Then she “shifted.” Because relatively few people own land and/or have a stable income, they seem to be constantly moving. Either they fail to pay the rent or are arbitrarily kicked out, or the landlord decides to return to Kafue or to finish building the house (many pay cheap rents for uncompleted houses), or they find a free place to stay with family, or they decide to go back to their home village, or any number of other reasons. Patricia was living with her husband and three children in a tiny two room hut in crowded Zambia compound when a friend offered for her to shift to Kasengele compound, a slightly more rural area on the outskirts of town. The friend had completed the walls and roof of a new house and needed someone to stay in it to protect it. So Patricia moved. And on her heels came three stepchildren and numerous nieces and nephews, since there was plenty of room in the house for them all to sleep. Although we were sad to lose Patricia at Railway, she quickly discovered that the more rural nature of Kasengele made it fertile ground for home gardens, and there were many women interested in learning about organic gardening. Over the last couple of months, she and Damian and Ali have been working together to start gardens all over Kasengele and the neighboring areas, and every week they find women approaching them who are eager to join their group. They are currently looking for land to start a community garden where they can demonstrate organic, locally appropriate, and affordable gardening techniques in a prominent location.

Ruth's garden, one of the many home gardens in Kasengele compound that Patricia has helped to start.

And so it is on notes like these that I find it not so difficult to leave Zambia. It has been a privilege to work alongside such motivated and dedicated individuals, and I thank them for continuing to share what DIG has given them with their friends and neighbors. May the seeds that have been planted continue to grow (and dry, be saved, and replanted)!

Kiki

DIG will be back in Kenya!

2011-08-11T07:05:00.000-07:00

Previously, DIG has developed three separate sites in Kenya: 1) Ruiru- a Clinic south of Nairobi with Mother 2 Mothers, 2) Raila- a school in the heart of the Kibera slums, and 3) WISER girls secondary school- in Muhuru bay only a few hours from our new sites.

This fall, DIG will begin two new projects with Crossroads Spring School and Lwala Community Hospital outside of Kisumu and Kisi, respectively. The new projects are a unique partnership between the Segal Family Foundation, the host sites, their stateside non-profits and DIG.

On the way to Crossroads

Crossroads:

Pulling up to Crossroads, we were greeted by 300 smiling children and the school’s board, principal and director. The site is in Hamisi District in Kenyan’s Western Province. It is incredibly beautiful with winding roads going through steep lush green mountains. However, not so visible is the district's high prevalence of HIV/AIDS and extreme poverty.

Business area right next to Crossroads

Crossroads serves over 300 orphans and children impacted by HIV/AIDS. The school is beginning a poultry project and combined with DIG’s gardens are hoping to reduce their expenditures on food for their students and make their meals more nutritious. Food prices in the area continue to rise and we are hoping to be part of a sustainable solution to support the students’ health and wellness at Crossroads.

A Crossroads Greeting

There will be two gardens at Crossroads. The first will be a highly visible demonstration vegetable garden on school property. The second garden will be a larger 1-2 acre plot nearby where we can grow more crops and help Crossroads become food secure.

Lwala:

After a long and winding drive on a dirt road through cornfields and small villages, we pulled up to Lwala Community Hospital. The hospital serves a catchment area of 20-30,000 people with 1,500-1,600 patients seen per month.

Lwala Community Hospital is aptly named because community is what it is all about. Lwala does more than just serve patients they also engage in outreach, education and economic development; true public health. They have a large plot of land that is waiting to be cultivated in the front of the hospital grounds.

The plot of land in front of Lwala Community Hospital

The project at Lwala will have a large focus on community outreach and development. The demonstration garden will be used as a training ground for three community groups: 1) youth group 2) HIV-positive support group and 3) traditional birth attendants group.

The potential for both these projects is truly amazing! We will hopefully begin digging in October and will keep you updated when we reap our first harvests.

Community Outreach at Lwala

Thank you for your interests in our new projects and hope to see you in Kenya next summer!

My Dream of Africa Came True by Maggie Johnston

2011-08-11T07:04:00.000-07:00

Maggie Johnston is part of the Birmingham DIG community. She is the director of Camp McDowell Environmental Program and joined DIG on this year's Donor Trip to Zambia.

Baobob Tree and Giraffes in South Luangwa, Zambia

As a young child, I would thumb through my father’s National Geographic magazines and dream of Africa. Can you relate?
Wild giraffes, lions, zebras, elephants wandering across the plains. Half clad, dark skinned African people using primitive tools to make a living from the land. I have grown up in a world of plenty and with good health. Blessed, many would say. On my first journey to Africa, with the DIG team, I was also blessed.

This was no typical tourist trip. Let me tell you a story of my perceptions of Africa.

Art, Eric, Noah and I eating carrots from the Garden

Our journey began as we, five strangers, met in the New York airport. Some of my family considered me a bit crazy to set out on such a trip. Not the first time they have wondered that about me, I bet! The trip consisted of three DIG staff, Sarah, Cat and Noah, all three amazing and energetic folks, out to help make the worlds a better place, and four “donors”, David, Eric, Art and me.

Arriving in Lusaka, the capital city, the next day, sweet Sarah Koch met us and whisked us away to the small community of Kafue, just an hour away. First impressions included…

Warm, loving people who embraced us as friends and helpers.
Children, lots of children. Many with dirty hands, faces, runny noses AND BIG SMILES!
Cleaner than I expected… compared to my travels in Haiti and Central America.
Dirt streets. One narrow busy highway between towns and cities, filled with cars, trucks, bikes and wildlife.
Nshima at meals. Nshima is maize (corn) meal and water, stirred vigorously toward the end of cooking to produce a thick, white staple of the Zambian diet much like our grits

One magical part of the journey was getting to experience the Zambian culture personally. The DIG gardens in Zambia are planted near clinics for HIV positive mothers. What a marvelous idea. Provide healthy foods and an income for moms to help them stay healthy and strong for their children, as well as to feed the children. We visitors, were invited into the homes and gardens of these ladies.

Sarah and I in the garden at Railway Clinic

Janet, a grandmother raising her grandchildren, led us down a winding well-worn path through head high bush grasses to visit her home and garden. She is also a seamstress and offered to make me a skirt from the vibrant African cloth they all wore. I am going to be wearing it to my next DIG event. Janet is kneeling front and center in the picture below.


Kafue District Hosptial Garden Group with Sarah, Catherine, Art, Eric and David

Sheila, also a grandmother, took me to the market where we purchased fresh fish and vegetables. We then went to her mud-sided home where I learned how to cook over an outdoor charcoal burner and how to prepare their staple dish nshima. When we sat on her floor to eat, she laughed as she watched me struggle learning how to grab the hot nshima and knead it in one hand to create the utensil they use to eat all food. No spoons or forks here!

Nshima, Grilled Chicken, Indigenous Eggplants & Cabbage

Although life is tougher than we are accustomed to, there is lots of laughter and singing. Children and young men play soccer (football) in any open area. Most of the “balls” are old rubber tires tied together with string and wire. But, Boy, you should see them handle those balls down the field in their bare feet!

Then our little troop had the exact opposite extreme of the African experience…a Robin Pope Safari. We flew into the South Luangwa National Park and were greeted at our safari camp by a hostess with cold damp towels on a silver tray. These camps host only 12 guests at a time, so the staff outnumbers the guests in most cases.

We stayed in plush lodging on the banks of the Luangwa River, where hippos grunted all day and foraged around your lodge at night. Crocodiles were sunning on the banks. A wonderful river to gaze upon, but not inviting us in for a skinny dip! At dawn, or just before, African drums woke us and called us to an outside breakfast watching the sunrise over the river. Then we were off on an early morning game drive in open air Land Cruisers.

Elephants crossing just as we pull up to our Bush Camp

We watched the wildlife I had dreamed of in their natural habitat in the bush of Africa. Impala and puku were too numerous to count and became common place. Zebra and elephants were often spotted. Three huge, adult male lions roared back and forth to each other as we sat in the truck listening and watching. They found each other and lay down to sleep much as kittens in a litter would do, spooning and turning in unison.

We had just spotted out first giraffe and everyone was leaning forward with binoculars, when we noticed a beautiful little picnic spread under shade trees… director’s chairs in a circle, people grilling meats over an open fire, a cloth covered table filled with cocktails and treats. My first thought was, oh my, we are interfering with someone’s nice picnic. Then we all seemed to realize about the same time that it was all for us! We ate our delicious lunch while a giraffe grazed the tree tops across an open field from us.

There were magical memories made daily. The passion for creating a better world that the DIG staff share. The new friends who are now more like family. Children like Bestina, whom I wanted to adopt and bring home. Thank you DIG for what you are doing in Africa and for allowing me to share just a brief moment with you.

Sincerely,
Maggie

Sunday Afternoon in Zambia

2011-03-22T07:08:00.000-07:00

It’s an overcast, breezy Sunday afternoon, and I just finished chopping up a large pumpkin to make into soup. I picked it up from one of the vegetable stands on the side of the road between Kafue and Lusaka yesterday. It’s such a relief to get out of the chaos and traffic of the city, pass the giant Lafarge cement factory in Chilanga and the last pothole, and then be on the slightly rolling road back home, surrounded by green fields and small hills spotted with the random thatched roof hut.

I was wishing that we had grown a field of pumpkins in one of our gardens, especially since the bright orange flesh of the ripe ones makes an excellent and nutritious addition to porridge for the Infant and Young Child Feeding cooking demonstrations. In addition, being a local vegetable, the seeds are available for next to nothing, and they grow well with little effort or attention. Alas, they also require large amounts of space – excellent for growing under maize stalks in the fields – and so the only pumpkin plants we have in our gardens are confined to a small area and used primarily for their leaves, which, when cooked with tomatoes, onions, and salad oil, are a favorite in the local cuisine.

A recent exciting development here has been the chance to liaise with mothers2mothers, an organization founded in South Africa that provides support and education for HIV+ mothers and works toward the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV. In Zambia, they are also well-integrated into clinic activities, and they offer weekly cooking demonstrations for mothers of underweight under-5-year old children. Zambia has a surprisingly high rate of malnutrition in under-5s, and m2m staff teach mothers how to use local foods to prepare nutritious meals that will help their children to gain weight and grow well. The vegetables coming from our gardensare easily integrated into the demonstrations; at three different clinics our produce has been used to prepare such things as zucchini porridge, spinach porridge, spinach and eggplant with mincemeat, and cooked green beans with tomatoes.

While emphasizing the nutritional value of gardening at the more advanced sites, we are still putting in new clinic gardens and expanding our gardening education programs. The site at Kafue Estates (site #3) has finally taken off; on Friday we had a large crowd of mothers and members of the ART support group digging a new bed, watering, planting nurseries, and making compost. Beginning this week, we will offer a series of four weekly gardening classes to teach the principles of organic and sustainable gardening using locally available resources, and participants who demonstrate commitment and interest will be selected and assisted in setting up home and community gardens in areas that the clinic serves.

We have passed the halfway point of this project, which leads to a lot of thought about the long-term sustainability of the gardens and their impact on individuals and communities. We want to empower people with knowledge and skills that they will not only retain and practice but will feel confident in sharing with others. Thus, in addition to the organic gardening classes, we are also planning a “Gardening for Nutrition” training that will give each participant the ability to teach about the nutritional importance of the gardens, especially in regard to specific populations, such as pregnant mothers, people living with HIV and AIDS, and underweight children. Individuals who participate in both the organic gardening classes and the Gardening for Nutrition training will serve as leaders as we expand the home gardening program, and they will be representatives and teachers of gardening and nutrition in their communities.

At the moment we’re functioning on quite a few different levels – from planting new seeds (and getting excited about cool season crops like carrots and kale!) to organizing trainings, from cooking up delicious nutritious vegetable dishes to helping groups track sales and expenses and make business management plans. Sometimes it can be a challenge to keep everything moving along smoothly, but it seems that no matter which direction we turn, we receive advice, support, encouragement, and enthusiastic responses. Thanks especially to CIDRZ (Center for Infectious Disease Research in Zambia), who is sponsoring this project, to the local offices of the Ministries of Health and Agriculture, to clinic staff and volunteers, and to all the participants!

DIG's Growing Community of Support

2011-02-17T10:51:00.000-08:00

DIG has seen an amazing influx of committed, available, and qualified individuals join our thriving garden community. Get to know a few of them below:

Jamie Hamblin

Jamie Hamblin is helping craft the content and design of our nutrition manual. She is finishing her masters in Nutrition from Georgia State University. Jamie, will be joining DIG on site in Zambia this summer to evaluate the effectiveness of DIG's nutrition resources. - If you would like to support DIG's effort to bring Jamie to Zambia please respond with your ideas and interest to sarah@reaplifeDIG.org

Cary Norton

Cary Norton Photograph from TASO-DIG site in Uganda

Cary has become the lead photographer for our garden and nutrition manuals. He is currently capturing images for use in these documents as well as researching and testing what is the most effective way to express ideas through photographs that will be translatable to illiterate and undereducated communities. Cary has worked with DIG before in Uganda and many of his photographs from that trip can be found throughout DIG’s website and print materials.

To view Cary’s extended work visit his websites here: http://carynorton.com/

Sally Dover

Sally Dover was a former DIG intern who spent three months working with us in Kenya. Sally, a Master in Public Health student at UAB in Birmingham, has been hired part time to act as DIG's Program Development Specialist.

Kelly Fisher

Kelly is joining the DIG manual development team as our page designer and implementer. Her experience in the magazine world has helped us craft a clear and focused vision for these materials and Kelly's ability to build the pages clearly and effectively has been a crucial addition to this project.

Noah Derman

Noah has been hired as DIG’s Deputy Director and works with Sarah Koch in Atlanta, GA. Noah’s experience in the developing world, the global public health sector, and non profit growth and management positions make him an excellent addition to the DIG family.

Sarah Sahlaney

Sarah comes to us from Georgetown University with a wonderful background in community development in the developing world. Sarah will be with DIG in Zambia through the summer, assisting Catherine in all Zambia projects. Sarah's work will be split between the physical gardens themselves as well as the larger community development and long term sustainability planning for those sites. You can read more from Sarah through her Blog at: http://sarahinzambia.tumblr.com/

Damian & Ali

Damian Schlereth and Ali Barnes

After Damian and Ali's March 2011 wedding, they will be embarking on a journey together in service to DIG for one year in Zambia. Their planned commitment will be of incredible value to DIG's long term strategic planning in the Zambia sites and we are excited to see this couple help grow and strengthen our efforts while doing the same for themselves and their marriage. If you'd like to see how you can help support Damian and Ali and their volunteer service to DIG check out their wedding registry here:

http://www.ewedding.com/sites/BarnesSchlerethWedding/

Growing Opportunities-Co Founder Steve Bolinger is Moving on From DIG

2011-02-17T09:52:00.000-08:00

Tanzania Karama Orphanage Garden

Everything in life has an ending, which in turn creates new beginnings full of new opportunities for growth. When DIG was co-founded by Sarah and myself I knew with absolute truth this was what I was suppose to do with my life at that particular time. I also knew it would not be permanent and there were other challenges in life on my “bucket list”. With much thought I have decided to move onto the next stage in my life which involves taking a step back from DIG and going back to school for Environmental Science Management. This opportunity will give me a chance to study something that I have truly been interested in and at the same time give me a chance to be in one place and closer to family and friends.

Fann Garden in Dakar, Senegal

DIG has been such an incredible gift to me and I have learned so much on this wonderful journey. You have all stepped up to the plate and helped transform this simple idea into a reality. Your unconditional generosity has helped thousands of people. Your trust and belief in Sarah and I to put your gifts to work has been a true honor. I have been humbled by this entire experience and thoroughly impressed how a community of people can make such a difference in the world.

DIG’s foundation is the strongest it has ever been with wonderful leadership, fresh recruits, new ideas and projects that will keep it prospering into the future. I am truly excited for what lies ahead for DIG and will continue to be on the sidelines helping when I can. DIG was always a gift to be passed on to others, now is that time.

Thank you for all the wonderful friendships and moments that you have given me over the years.

Steve Bolinger

Co-founder

After a long day of work in Arusha, Tanzania

Visiting Fatsey's HUG garden in Senegal

Steve with the Fann gardeners in Dakar, Senegal

Laura and Jenna Bush visit DIG's CTA garden in Dakar, Senegal

First plantings with DIG's Budono Garden Group in Uganda

Turning over beds in DIG's Ziguinchor Garden in Senegal

Breaking ground on the first DIG garden at the Hospital Fann in Dakar, Senegal

Alan Stone Clinic Garden in Uganda

One Month in Zambia-by Catherine Magill

2011-02-17T09:15:00.000-08:00

One month can be an infinite amount of time in a garden. In one month, gorgeous green plants can disappear from the face of the earth. They can wither from lack of water, be obliterated by insect attacks, be mortally wounded by neglect of all kinds. However, one month also happens to be enough time for plants to quadruple in size, to go from flowerless to exploding with fruit, to overflow the boundaries of their beds, and to fill buckets with their produce. And so it is in Zamland. What a stunning surprise to return to after the holidays! Gardens that I had left in very tenuous positions took root (literally) and took off!

We are incredibly privileged to be working with some absolutely wonderful groups of people. The ART (Anti-Retroviral Therapy) support group at Kafue District Hospital (KDH) has been laboring intensely for three and a half months, and they are reaping the firstfruits of their labor (much more to come, we hope!). Green beans, spinach, Chinese cabbage, lettuce, zucchini, and patty pan and yellow crookneck summer squashes are being harvested in quantity, while peas, eggplant, tomatoes, tomatillos, winter squashes, sweet and hot peppers, and okra are all ripening. Neem and moringa trees are sprouting along the fenceline – along with some of the living fenceposts that we planted – and avocado, loquat, lemon, and guava trees, as well as a granadilla vine, are soaking up the rains and thriving.

With our core group of about ten people at KDH, we are now beginning to plan for a transfer of leadership, so that they can assume full responsibility for the maintenance and management of the garden. In March we will begin a series of organic gardening workshops to provide a strong foundation in the techniques we have been practicing in the garden. We have formed a business committee to handle produce sales and marketing and to plan for a sustainable financial future. Over the last few weeks we have had a constant stream of people – hospital administrators, nurses, groundskeepers, other staff, and local community members – coming to the garden in search of fresh produce. We are also organizing a planning committee to make sure that the garden is constantly producing and that practices like soil improvement through crop rotation, seed-saving and compost-making are continued as a fundamental part of the garden. Finally, we are beginning to realize our pass-it-forward goal of donating produce and are providing vegetables for nutrition classes and cooking demonstrations for pregnant HIV+ women.

In addition, the mothers2mothers (m2m) group of three HIV+ mothers who are sharing a large plot with the ART group has demonstrated an incredible motivation to develop their part of the garden as much as possible. With almost no oversight or assistance, they doubled the size of their garden while I was away, transplanted excess plants from their first beds, and made plans to continue expanding! They are hoping to inspire other mothers in the postnatal and underweight under-5s support groups to join them and keep on growing!

The second main garden, at Railway clinic, is also doing very well. We’ve encountered some challenges with the soil – it was previously quite heavily cultivated, and while seemingly soft and loose on top, it appears to be quite low in some essential nutrients – and, it seems, with a “kawalala” who appears to have a special taste for green beans. However, the group of about eight core women continues to work extraordinarily hard, and they’ve filled every possible space with okra, impwa (local eggplant), Chinese cabbage, spinach, sweet potatoes, cassava, green beans, cucumbers, and whatever else they can fit in.

Now that Railway and KDH are beginning to take care of themselves, we have expanded to two new clinics in the area – Kafue Estates and Nangongwe. At Kafue Estates, we only have a small space in front of the clinic, so we will attempt to demonstrate some traditional in-ground beds and compost-making as well as some space-saving options like growing up vertical surfaces and using containers. Once the main garden is established, the emphasis will be on using it as a training space and encouraging people to establish gardens in their homes.

At Nangongwe we are emphasizing a new program that will bring the clinic’s MCH (Maternal and Child Health) programs together with ART and PMTCT (prevention of mother-to-child transmission) programs in the garden. In addition to having a core group of people who will run the garden on a day-to-day basis and share the produce, we will particularly be targeting pregnant women who have been newly identified as HIV-positive. We will invite them to participate in the garden as a means to keep them connected to the clinic – many women in the areas in which we are working do not utilize many of the health services available to them – and to provide extra motivation to adhere to the ART regimen that they will be following to prevent transmission of HIV to their unborn babies. We will offer weekly health talks as well as garden classes and cooking demonstrations, as well as the opportunity to be part of a group who is learning gardening skills and will eventually be supported in setting up home gardens. Overall, this project will be an experiment in the power of the gardens not only to contribute to nutrition, income-generation, and empowerment activities, but to play a role in the prevention of HIV (in this case, mother-to-child transmission) as well.

Board Growth

2011-02-03T06:13:00.000-08:00

As DIG prepares for it's annual Board retreat in a few weeks we are excited to welcome two new members to the team. Bill Westwood and Beth Pann have been passionate supporters of DIG for many years now. Bill has even made the trek to visit our first sites planted in Senegal.

You can visit this link to read more about DIG's Board of Directors

http://www.reaplifedig.org/Reap_Life/BOD.html

Zambia's First Major Harvest

2011-01-26T06:12:00.000-08:00

DIG's Program Manager in Zambia, Catherine Magill has been a busy bee in the gardens. First harvests are coming in as the rainy season continues to bless the country with a long awaited drink. With a laugh and a curious attitude, participants are trying zucchini for the first time. They like it and sweet veggies are now disappearing off the vine.

Railway's morning harvest

zucchini and patty pans

As Catherine awaits the arrival of her new volunteer, Sarah Sahlaney from the States, ideas begin to grow for cooking demonstrations and nutrition classes. All of these experiences both in the garden and in the kitchen are being evaluated to improve and further develop DIG's "process". We hope that by testing and more effectively capturing the system of our work we will be able to assist an increased number of communities looking to transform their lives and their bodies through DIG.

Kafue District Hospital Garden (before)

Kafue District Hospital Garden (growing)

DIGging has begun in Zambia

2010-10-31T23:20:00.001-07:00

Under a toasty sky, members of the Kafue District Hospital ART support group gathered on October 12th to begin breaking up the hard earth and imbuing new life into their vegetable garden. The previous year, completely on their own initiative, without support from any outside organization, the group had prepared a large piece of land for growing local vegetables as an income-generating project. They had a vision for strengthening their group through developing a variety of activities at and around the hospital at which they are based. Besides providing health education on different topics of particular relevance to people affected by HIV, they wanted to set up a garden and a small canteen selling healthy home-cooked food to patients and visitors at the hospital. They hoped these activities would attract new members to the group and contribute to developing a stronger local community of HIV-positive individuals.

However, after some months of faithfully attending to the garden, they found that the hospital’s water system was unable to provide a consistent source of water through the dry season, and they suffered an additional setback when an invasion from cows on a neighboring farm damaged many of their plants.

When I first saw the garden in September, it was a crusty, hardened piece of earth with withered remnants of peppers, eggplant, and sweet potatoes scattered around. But when members of the support group heard about DIG’s plan to help start vegetable gardens in Kafue, they were eager to organize themselves and re-start the project. They had been looking for assistance to construct a fence, resolve the water problem, and move forward with the garden, and thus DIG’s arrival was an answer to their prayers.

With the strong motivation of a core group of participants, and the assistance of others who have some interest in the project, in three short weeks the land has been transformed into a neat array of double-dug inground and raised beds, with a nursery full of sprouting eggplant, tomatoes, sweet and hot peppers, cabbage, kale, Swiss chard, spinach, lettuces and herbs. While most support group meetings see an attendance of less than ten people, garden work days have attracted as many as seventeen. And once the rains begin to fall, the seedlings are transplanted, the direct-seeded plants begin to fill up the long beds, and green leaves cover the brown earth, we won’t be surprised to see more and more people coming over to find out what is going on.

In fact, the garden has already attracted the attention of another support group for HIV-positive mothers, and starting next week they’ll begin working alongside the ART group. This will give the ART members an opportunity to take what they’ve already learned and share it with others, and it will start the process of extending the benefit of the garden further into the community.

In the meantime, while we are waiting for the start of the rainy season and the installation of a pump that will guarantee water supply to the garden throughout the year – thanks to a collaborative effort between DIG, CIDRZ, and the hospital – we are having regular discussions about vegetables and nutrition, organic gardening techniques, garden planning, and how to establish a garden that will be both environmentally and financially sustainable well into the future.

Watch for photos tinged with green some time in the next few weeks!

Zambian Beginnings

2010-10-31T23:19:00.000-07:00

Welcome to Zambia!! We’re at five weeks and counting here. These days the sun is shining a bit more and the afternoons are slightly less chilly, and progress on beginning the gardens seems to be moving at about the same pace as the changes in the weather – slowly slowly.

While this seems to be par for the course in Africa, somehow I managed to forget that – I arrived quite eager and energized to get started, get my hands in the dirt, and watch those plants grow! Consequently the delays have been frustrating, but they have also given me a chance to discover my surroundings, reflect, and prepare.

DIG has the privilege of partnering with CIDRZ, the Center for Infectious Disease Research in Zambia, a large NGO based out of Lusaka and working in many aspects of public health at government health centers around the country. Specifically, we will be helping to set up five demonstration gardens at clinics in and around Lusaka, as well as a number of personal gardens in the homes of individuals that we meet through the clinics. We hope that, in addition to providing nutritious vegetables for people living with HIV and AIDS, the gardens will be a way to draw people into the clinics and help them adhere to their HIV treatment regimens, improving their health on multiple levels.

Zambia has been heavily affected by HIV and AIDS, which, among other things, is threatening food security across the country. With many of their breadwinners – in most cases, subsistence farmers doing the majority of their farming by hand – sick and dying, families are struggling simply to get enough to eat. People living with HIV need 10-15% more calories than the average person; undernourishment leaves their bodies susceptible to disease and makes it difficult for them to tolerate antiretroviral therapy.

In response to this, we are looking for ways to develop integrated gardens that will not only contain typical micronutrient-containing vegetables but also more starch-based higher-calorie foods. By helping people find simple ways to produce a significant portion of their caloric and nutritional needs in small, year-round plots close to home, we can assist them in living healthy and productive lives. One of these days the digging will finally start, and then eventually we’ll have pictures to send to demonstrate how this can be done. Watch for updates of dirty and dusty people wielding shovels and picks!

A few words from Ann's volunteer trip.

2010-10-31T23:17:00.000-07:00

I have never met so many people who were truly present, not distracted by the rush of life as we so often are in cities. I felt completely at home, every day, everywhere, even in the slums and in strange towns along the roads. Perhaps that was because Nasur, our driver, was the kindest human being imaginable, and completely dedicated to taking care of us in his world; perhaps it was because our group was so compatible and so forgiving of idiosyncracies in our ranks; perhaps it was because people in shops and on the street and in the orphanages and at the schools were all so willing to take us as we were, and to hug and smile and laugh with us as we learned about their lives and their foods and their work and their ideas for the future.

And whether we spoke the same language or simply understood that we were on this earth together, we had fun. I never felt discouraged, even when I saw what was surely great poverty. I saw only willingness to work, and determination to live fully today and to keep on trying to do well for oneself and for others, no matter what might be coming tomorrow. It was a very great lesson for me.

Welcome to our new website

2010-10-11T03:49:00.000-07:00

Check out our new site reaplifeDIG.org

We are excited to announce our new website