This project shall distribute 500 vegetables seed starter- packs to 500 households living in Ha Sekake and neighbouring areas to improve child nutrition for the year commencing October 2020- September 2021 during Covid- 19 pandemic.
Under the current Covid- 19 pandemic, availability of food, let alone nutritious food is a challenge in Lesotho. The available food items in the stores are increasingly becoming expensive and unaffordable to unemployed men and women. The most affected population are the children under the age of five years. It has been reported that the national prevalence of under-five stunting is 33.4% in Lesotho, which is greater than the developing country average of 25% (Global Nutrition Report, 2020).
SMARTD will work with Tebellong Health service area (the Hospital area where SMARTD is operating), as a partner entity, for malnutrition data of malnutritional children aged under five years in areas that are served by the two institutions. Identified households shall be offered seed starter packs including an illustration manual which will help over and above the training that is being offered by SMARTD in guiding the vegetable production processes. These should maximize production potential.
The project will equip and assist unemployed men and women in Ha Sekake and neighbouring areas to increase their vegetables production, improve nutrition, generate income from sales of vegetables and vegetables seeds, and lift themselves as well as other community members out of poverty. Trained households will also share their knowledge with other community members. In this way, Ha Sekake households would have contributed to poverty alleviation and improved livelihoods in their areas.
This project has provided additional documentation in a PDF file (projdoc.pdf).
