Garden project

The group for our garden project is called Mwaremi Garden Women Group Shimbwe Juu Tesheni. Four families are involved in the project, totally 29 people. The project started in 2007 and the families have a big garden together. Most people in the community are eating only vegetables but it is not possible to buy it if you do not have any money. Because of this most people eat stiff porridge and maize porridge (ugali). By having a garden project the families can eat vegetables and can sell to neighbors and on the local market. The families´ economy increases with about 75 % because of this project.  The money that the families gets from selling vegetables goes to kerosene, cooking oil, salt, match boxes, school fees for primary school, clothes and so on. All the families also have their own garden at home and they are using the knowledge that they got from the project and develop together with the others. But it is not just the families that gain from the project; the community is given money to for example churches and schools.

From the beginning the project got funding from Miinjeni and therefore Miinjeni get 10 % back from the interest. 5 % of this goes to developing the organization and 5 % goes to new members for starting a new garden project.

A big challenge for the project is to sell the vegetables through the whole year. But during the dry season it is difficult because of lack of water, the production gets lower and the group is in need of pip water, which is not possible because of the expenses. Another problem is that some of the seeds are very expensive and the project cannot afford it.

It is not only during the dry season it is problem with the production. During the rain season all the neighbors have a great production of vegetables and the families cannot sell as much as they produce. To be able to sell more they would need transport from the village to bigger cities.

To develop the project more capital is needed and that would help the families to get rid of insects that is eating the vegetables and to get pip water. The project would also like to educate the community about how to develop their gardens in a modern way and this will help the village to be richer.