By Georgia Beasley | Project Leader
Across East Africa the first growing season of the year is well underway. In South Sudan specifically, vegetable seeds were recently sewn in nurseries and then transplanted into gardens. We are happy to report that gardens are underway!
In South Sudan, we are partnering with Women Relief Aid, a grassroots, women-led NGO based in Juba, that provides humanitarian assistance and community development throughout underserved communities in the country.
In Torit, Eastern Equatoria State, we are supporting community-wide food security via ‘community club gardens,’ ran and managed by young people in rural households. These community club gardens support more than just vegetable production and food security for those at-risk of economic, conflict, and environmental-related shocks: they strengthen community and inter-communal resource sharing, promote solidarity, and create a learning network for climate-smart agricultural practices.
In this project, 100 club members received a training intensive on vegetable production, climate-smart agriculture practices, and crop diversification. This training also focuses on empowerment, and those selected for the training are some of the most vulnerable in their communities: many of the trainees are at-risk teenage mothers.
These young women have been managing the community club gardens throughout Torit county. Community members receive guidance and training from the trained club members, making these gardens a hub for community learning and knowledge sharing.
Through this program, a ripple effect of increased vegetable production will spread across these communities. Our current estimate is that 2,000 members of the community will be impacted by this initiative, through garden participation and access to fresh vegetables!
As the growing season continues, training progresses, and harvests begin, we can’t wait to share more progress updates with you!
Thank you for supporting projects like this one. Remember – East Africa is experiencing its worst drought in 40 years, making garden projects all the more important. At SPI, we believe that we all deserve to have enough food on our tables to feed our loved ones. South Sudan in particular has had a long, tenuous history. Malnourishment and food insecurity are widespread do to the compounding effects of decades of protracted conflict, matched with a looming climate crisis. This has left 8.3 million people in need of humanitarian assistance and over 1.4 million children suffering malnutrition.
We are grateful to work with a large network of grassroots organizations that are deeply connected to their communities. With our support, they are able to create and implement sustainable solutions to the problems they face–as a community.
Please consider donating to support more projects like this one, and share with your networks so we can build a groundswell of change makers!
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