Climate Action Awareness Through a Shelter-Kenya

The food forest phase 2 continues to supply vegetables for the women and their children. We have been in a dry season and so a lot of new planting is currently happening as we just started reciving some rains. We have however been sprinkling using watering cans and splinkers. We have harvested over 30 pumpkins and a lot of thorn melons during the dry season. We have also been making food baskets made up of vegetables and  herbs from our farm. We have had enough vegetables for the shelter, milk and eggs. We have been doing soil and water conservation through mulching and making sure that the water is used for atleatst three uses to save on it. Watering has been done by women three days in a week and with mulching we managed to retain some water in our soil and thus we still had enough vegetables despite being a very long dry season. 

Our Food forest Phase 1 has been doing so well. We have been getting food -especially vegetables from it, enough for all women and children. From the matching that we got from little by little campaign, we were able to do an assessment for our food forest phase 1. We engaged external permaculture experts; two external evaluators, James Kamau-who is a permaculture consultant and an experienced organic farmer and a trainer and Sheena Sha (a facilitator and the CEO, Harvesting for Good East Africa), contracted to do the evaluation of the food forest and they both made separate reports with recommendations. The different evaluators were very helpful as they shared different significant recommendations from their reports that were very helpful, and we integrated them in our new food forest phase II that we established during this project. After the assessment, we got a funding to do our second food forest workshop. The participants learnt and practically worked on phase II. The shelter participants were tasked to continue taking care of the food forest. Continuous weekly assessments were to be done for the two phases of food forest so as to keep on monitoring the progress of the crops and trees planted. Jame Kagwe, the lead facilitator was to do some assessment after three months to check on overall performance of the food forest layers and advise the shelter accordingly. It was agreed for the Phase one and two Food Forests to be monitored regularly in order to understand how the system develops over time to inform for soil enrichment, vegetation and animal biodiversity, carbon sequestration and production.

Take care of the land, and the land will take care of you!

At Agatha Amani House, this saying is a testimonial!

Though we have not been receiving more donations for this campaign, we can proudly say that the initially donated amount was well invested and impact felt beyond the donation period!

The food forest we established has continually been feeding us; with plenty of organic vegetables, herbs, beauty, clean air, over and above the knowledge that we have acquired so far. We have had enough for our housed women and children and we have been selling the surplus to the nearby market. We have also gained a lot of knowledge on how to take care of a food forest and all that is in it, something that has motivated our interest to share the knowledge we have acquired over time with the community at large. We have plans to involve the community more in 2023 when it comes to climate action. Yes, We plan to steward more souls in 2023 as we also steward the land even the more! and this two are inseparable.

We have already scheduled for our second natural building workshop which is towards the end of Jan 2023 and we also plan to have our second phase II Food Forest Workshop on April 2023.

Thank You Very Much.

The donations from GlobalGiving have been of great assistance to our shelter. Our established food forest has been doing well, which was planted during our workshop and the participants planted a lot of vegetables, fruit trees, eco trees during their practical lessons. For the last three months, we have been able to have enough vegetables for our residents and children and we have also been able to make sales; we have been selling surplus to nearby market and business women. From the feedback that we get from our customers, our vegetables are very competitive in the market; they are healthy and tastier. We have been using bio fertilizers, compost manure and animal manure from our chicken, cows and rabbits. Despite the great achievements from our food forest, lack of rains has been an issue since the food forest do not have enough water making the farm less productive as it was during the rainy season. We have been watering the food forest at least twice per week and this has helped sustain the vegetables and trees. We have a culture of eating what we produce at our shelter and since the establishment of this food forest, we have been eating a variety of vegetables; tomatoes, herbs such as rosemary, parsley, spinach, kales, amaranth, African nightshade, Chinese cabbage, potatoes etc. We wish to thank all those who contributed towards this noble project that has been of great benefit to our shelter as we continue to empower the survivors of sexual and domestic violence. Your support helps us to continue stewarding their souls as we steward the land.

We have managed to establish a synotropic forest in one part of our farm. During the establishment of this part, we incorporated training where a total of 20 residents and staff from our shelter were trained on synotropic farming which is a kind of farming that seeks to cultivate resilient ecosystems by regenerating the soil without the need of long term external inputs. Through the biodiversity of the plants, the soil becomes rich and sequesters Carbon. This is part of creating awareness to combat and reverse climate change by building healthy, biologically-diverse and mineral-rich soils, all the while sequestering carbon from the atmosphere. Presently, we are planning for a Permaculture and Food Forest Workshop which is open to members of the community as from 18th April to 21st April. The workshop will also incorporate practicals on another different part of our farm where we will establish now a permaculture food forest. The workshop aims at creating awareness on available small local climate solutions thus a ripple effect and inviting more people to contributing towards mitigation. The forests will provide food/fruits for the shelter residents and create a holistic, living-in-harmony-with-nature experience. Will also help in water conservation and reduction of the effects of the greenhouse gases and assist in carbon sequestration thus contributing to mitigation of climate change. We have are currently working on the land in preparation (earthworks) for the upcoming workshop. Our team of facilitators is as well mobilizing for participants so as to reach out to a big number of people as possible.