Seeds and Skills for Women to Grow Vegetables

Hi folks,

We’re excited to tell you about a new partner in Haiti who is taking a different approach to improving the quality of life for Haitians in rural areas. Vision for Haiti is a US-based nonprofit organization that has been responding to emergencies and ongoing need in Haiti since 2010. Recently, Naima had the opportunity to speak with Beatrice Marseille, a nurse practitioner who founded Vision for Haiti and developed an innovative approach to community health.

Vision for Haiti operates a healthcare clinic in Meyer, a town two hours southwest from Port-au-Prince. In addition to general care, the clinic specializes in women’s health and diet-related health problems. A majority of their patients are women who are seeking healthcare services for themselves or their children, although men are also welcome and receive services. High blood pressure, diabetes, and other nutrition and diet-related health problems are some of the most common issues within the community — the causes of which can be addressed by accessing nutrient-dense foods like vegetables.

The nurses and doctors serving the community don’t rely on prescriptions alone to treat these issues. In addition to a prescription, the folks who attend the clinic also receive SPI seeds to grow some of their own food to feed themselves and their families. In addition to SPI seed, Vision for Haiti provides locally sourced seeds. This makes us happy; we encourage the use of high-quality local seed where it is available.

Vision for Haiti’s program is both a health incentive and a valuable resource. Those who choose to participate agree to a follow-up visit to the clinic. In return, Vision for Haiti provides seeds, training at their demonstration garden, and on-site garden checkups by an agronomist they’ve hired to support the community. Through the program, they also coordinate community-based gardening meetings to assess food security and nutrition levels as well as offer counseling about diet and how to improve nutrition.

Beatrice also highlighted some additional benefits of the gardening program: improved nutrition, economic power, and psychosocial well-being. Gardens provide fresh vegetables, which are high in nutrition, and the work from gardening provides both exercise and a sense of well-being. These are important components for the physical and mental health of their patients, and it also reduces reliance on medication to manage health issues. Because they are gardening and training together, patients are contributing to improved social interactions and community cohesion. Gardening gives patients the opportunity to give back to their families and community in an important way. Finally, growing their own vegetables also means that they are able to spend money they would normally use on food for other necessities. New skills and knowledge acquired from the training will last them a lifetime.

Beatrice and Vision for Haiti have a long history and deep experience providing health services to the Mayer community. By focusing on one community and managing the scope of their program, each gardener is more fully supported. They have worked hard to establish relationships with community members and local healthcare providers. Vision for Haiti’s demonstrated expertise and deep relationships form a foundation from which gardeners can learn how to benefit from the program and enroll other community members.

We’re honored to work with folks like Beatrice and Vision for Haiti, and we’re inspired by their long-term approach to family and community health. From us, for Vision for Haiti, thank you for your support of this project.

Hi folks,

Naima Dido, our Program Director, is currently on the road with Nancee Neel in the mountains of Guatemala where they’re working to grow a deeper partnership with a relatively new partner, Pop Atz’iaq.

An SPI neighbor, Nancee Neel, had served as an advisor and friend of the organization before she introduced us to their work. Established in the 1990s, Pop Atz’iaq has focused on craft-based livelihood development with women and men in the region around San Cristobal, and they have a strong track record of success. Catarina, the organization’s Director, reports that establishing a garden-based livelihood program has been a longstanding goal of the organization and its members.

For context, craft-based livelihoods depend on international market outlets, and those can be fickle. Garden-based livelihoods are more reliable, and this program will help diversify their members’ options for income. Catarina reports that social and economic conditions are deteriorating this decade, due in large part to the lack of rural development support from the government. Child malnutrition rates have risen to 80% in most of the communities served.

Naima and Nancee have been visiting the different Pop Atz’iaq communities for the past few days. Earlier this week, they had the honor of attending a stakeholder meeting where members continued to coordinate the garden-based livelihood project. They’ll continue to travel alongside Catarina through next week. Naima writes:

“The mountains are breathtaking. We even saw an active volcano on our way to San Cristobal.

We’re staying at a hotel near Pop Atz’iaq. We’re surrounded by small gardens of corn and beans. The only gardens growing vegetables are those associated with PA.

San Cristobal is beautiful and green. The area is culture-rich. Most of the women wear traditional clothes while all the men are dressed very western.

The Mayan culture is very strong and alive, but the Spanish influences are everywhere. The place seemed so familiar since I arrived. I realized the similarities between the coast of Kenya and Guatemala come from the Arab influence in the architecture.

The other very obvious thing is the difference between poor Mayan villagers in the rural agricultural communities and the urbanized and relatively wealthy mestizos population in city.

I am amazed at how the Mayan people here still proudly maintain their culture and traditions. Still, the Spanish language and non-Mayan people have control over resources and access. For many, Spanish is a second language and it’s the official language mandated in schools and government.

The staple foods are eggs, chicken, rice, maize, beans, and cheese. The style of cooking is very simple. Squash is also very common. Chili peppers, potatoes, tomatoes, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, and onions are also popular, but trucked in from other regions. The vegetables grown here are exported throughout Central America.

Life for most people I’ve met involves hard physical work. People are very poor, but much like other communities I’ve met in my travels around the world, being poor doesn’t mean their lives are unhappy or unsatisfied.

Women I spoke to at the stakeholder meeting said their days are spent working in their homes, cooking, raising the children, tending gardens, weaving cloth for their own clothes and for the market.”

We’ll share more about Pop Atz’iaq in a future report. In the meantime, thank you for your support of these communities, and for your support of Seed Programs International. We truly cannot do what we do without you!

Hi folks,

Late in 2016, we told you about a pilot program with SPI partner GrowEastAfrica (then DBCO) to establish community vegetable gardens in Billa village and Soyama town in Ethiopia’s Burji region. (You can read the full story here.) GrowEastAfrica works to support folks who belong to marginalized communities and has embraced groups that include large numbers of internally displaced people (IDP), many of whom fled their hometown of Mega to escape conflict.

“The issues that IDPs face in this region is well known to the locals, but little assistance has been offered...and there’s very little international focus on this area.” — Wato Seif, GrowEastAfrica Officer

Despite challenges in the region including scarce access to water and land resources, the pilot groups have been successful and GrowEastAfrica (GEA) has been, well, growing over the past year and a half. GEA now supports 25 women’s groups who come together to share the wealth of knowledge from their Burji traditions and support one another in establishing new livelihoods. By adapting and applying their knowledge to their new environment, these gardeners hope to grow enough food to both feed their families and sell at market. The regional drought has made their work difficult, but they are planning innovative ways to succeed and thrive.

We’re honored to be working with GrowEastAfrica and, by extension, the women who are establishing livelihoods in this challenging environment. GEA works closely with gardeners to ensure that their programs and our partnership are a reflection of these women’s highest priorities.

• GEA and SPI’s partnership prioritizes self-sufficiency and safety.
• Training session are offered at times when women can attend.
• Agricultural projects are tailored to be run near the women’s homes.
• Programs aim to broaden and develop skills necessary to build and sustain whole livelihoods.

In addition to gardening, GEA coordinates financial training workshops for basic financial literacy. As part of this training, the women’s groups participate in chamas, which are group savings plans that build capital so the group can seed future businesses for women in the group. These women are not only building their own economic power; they are creating more opportunities for themselves, and helping the whole community to grow and prosper.

What’s next for GrowEastAfrica? Securing land and water resources.

“At present we are primarily focused on one main site vegetable garden project which is in Soyama. The current plot size is very small and we are trying to expand to accommodate for the size of the families and to ensure a sustainable source of water. We plan to keep the current plots and add more to them. At present we are focused on one group called Biher. This is the Mega ladies we are currently working with.” — Yohannes Chondes, GrowEastAfrica Co-Founder

Women need a safe place to live where they can support their children. Like many women in other parts of the world, the life of a Burji woman in these communities is hard. They have to juggle domestic duties and agricultural work — sowing, weeding, and harvesting crops, all while making food for their families and collecting firewood and water. This is unpaid, and often unrecognized, labor. With access to skills and resources, these women are establishing livelihoods that will create a foundation for self-sufficiency for themselves and generations to come.

Our thanks to you for supporting this project, and a special thanks to the folks at GrowEastAfrica — we cannot do what we do without the financial support of our donors or the expertise of our partners.

Nathan Rwabulemba, Executive director of our Uganda partner organization TAPA says the possibility of creating a prosperous community with improved standards of living is his inspiration. Below is a recent report summary shared by Nathan.

“TAPA has supported individual women and women’s groups in economic strengthening since the inception of the organisation.  We reach women through mobilization and organising group formation of Village saving and Loaning associations (VS&LA), supporting women with domestic animals for income generation, supporting backyard gardens and small farms run by women. Our main goal is to improve the nutrition of children and other family members,  women empowerments on their rights to reduce gender-based violence. Most of these women are caretakers of HIV/AIDS orphans that have been denied and ostracised by their communities. These women are all recipients of SPI seeds. The seeds and the Training provided by TAPA Agronomists has improved many lives and livelihoods.

We are aiming to support the orphans and other vulnerable children and their families through approaches that address their livelihood, mainly vegetable gardening. We also provide Agricultural training alongside other training topics, like child protection and rights, and the rights of their caregivers; plus sensitisation and mobilisation activities to improve incomes in the households that these marginalised and vulnerable people live in. In addition, TAPA is providing psychosocial support and hope to some sections of the community where it operates, which are hard-hit by the impact of the HIV/AIDS pandemic through comprehensive social and health care in Kyegegwa District.

TAPA is also implementing an education improvement project guided by integrated community-based strategies; by putting up structures for teaching and learning to take place; amidst realistic and motivating socio-community environments. Some school structures have been set up, although the buildings are not enough to meet the desired targets.

TAPA is currently working in Kyegegwa district with 9 sub-counties, 42 parishes, 551 villages. The increase in SPI seeds for us will allow us to reach more people than we have in the past years. Thank you for your support and caring about the people of Kyegegwa.”

It is because of your support that we are able to reach this marginalized community of people in Uganda. Thank you.

A typical woman in Liberia has a lot of work on her plate in addition to the work of managing her household. And to be clear, this is work, often unpaid and unacknowledged — gathering firewood, fetching water, cooking, hand washing clothes, and taking care of family members. Household work can be a huge burden that limits a woman’s ability to take on paid employment or broaden her skills through training and education.

In Liberia, much like many other developing countries around the world, large gender gaps impair women's ability to provide for themselves and their families. Even though the number of hungry people has declined worldwide in the last decade, it remains unacceptably high in places like Liberia. REAP is working hard to change the narrative for Bentol City.

“Women frequently achieve lower productivity than male farmers because they do not have access to the same resources. From the beginning, our goal has been to identify locally available interventions that will improve and increase the productivity of all our program participants.” — REAP founder Christine Norman

A long-term SPI partner in Liberia, REAP (Restoration of Education Advancement Programs), understands the vital importance of the work women accomplish in their communities — both paid and unpaid. REAP’s Women’s Empowerment Program supports women who are taking charge of their own economic advancement through gardening and education, while also accomplishing their daily household work and familial responsibilities.

This program provides women and their children with a supportive space where they can learn, grow a livelihood, and improve the lives of their families. Specifically, the program strengthens the value chains for vegetables and other food these farmers grow in their gardens. Offering agricultural and business training, women farmers put theory into practice using vegetables they grow in the school’s garden. As of early summer, their focus was on potatoes, cassava, okra, and eggplant.

Not all the vegetables stay in the garden or with the families. Women apply business skills they learn, like processing, packaging, labeling, and pricing, by selling vegetables at the local outdoor market and roadside stalls, and by supplying local supermarkets. Besides topics offered by the school, REAP partners with the Ministry of Commerce to offer additional training on marketing, branding, labeling, and pricing. What a fantastic way to connect their hard work to the cash economy market!

REAP and Mayor Christine Norman have made significant progress in their efforts to keep women in the community engaged and involved as a way to eliminate hunger and disease. They’re always looking for new relationships and resources to enrich their programs, and we’re always excited to hear about their new connections.

Your support helps to make these programs possible. Thank you!