Green Thumbs

Urban Gardening Training

at the Eastleigh Community Centre

Tim giving out seeds to members of Iftin

This past Monday and Tuesday, we had the joy of having our CBM colleague and friend Tim Bannister return to Eastleigh to lead a follow up training on urban gardening with 25 members of the Iftin Women's Empowerment Program.

Tim and Diane Bannister during the

second day's gardening demonstration

(attracting quite a crowd from the primary school at recess)

Somali and Oromo women building their sack gardens

Aaron and Tim building a sample bag with the ladies

Erica and Tim showing the ladies the basics of gardening

Each of the ladies were assigned a small group that they will build several sack gardens with at the community centre and tend their gardens with. The ladies will keep each other accountable and at any time can take tools and gardening resources back to their homes where they can establish their sack gardens for their families... a fresh and abundant supply of spinach, onions, tomatoes and kales.

Nelius with her small group's first sack garden

"Proud Gardeners"

Jen with a member of Iftin

Thomas and Erica play fighting

with some of the Somali boys

"Everyone likes Kung-Fu Fighting... huh!"

Some of the urban gardening participants

Tim and Diane after a successful time of training

Green Thumbs Up!

Urban Gardens

Vertical Gardening in Nairobi

The Iftin Women's Empowerment Program in Eastleigh, Nairobi, is striving to help vulnerable refugee families living in the informal settlements of Nairobi to improve their lives. As Canadian Baptists, we are committed to several aspects of transformation, including issues of food security. In urban areas of Africa, millions of people become trapped in sprawling ghettos, slums and shanty towns where people live on less than a dollar a day. In such communities, most of a family's income goes to either food or shelter.

Training in Eastleigh

Tim and Diane Bannister not only lead the short term volunteer program of Canadian Baptist Ministries in Kenya, but Tim is our resident agricultural and agro-forestry expert. We are looking forward to having him back in Eastleigh on May 16 and 17 to lead a training program on vertical sack gardening with the Iftin members. This will be our fourth training on sack gardening at the Eastleigh Community Centre. It has been encouraging to see God at work in the lives of families who had never gardened before.

Please keep Tim and the Iftin group in your prayers as we work together to provide a reliable and inexpensive supplement to the diet of refugee families.

The first vertical bag garden workshop at the Eastleigh Community Centre led by our Canadian Baptist Ministries colleague Timothy Bannister with Bruno Soucey and Aaron, back in 2009.

Learn more about the use of bag gardens in improving food security for impoverished communities through the work of other organizations serving in Kenya:

LINK Kibera:

http://hubpages.com/hub/The-Sack-Gardens-of-the-Kibera-Slum

LINK Cowfiles:

http://www.cowfiles.com/african-gardens/bag-gardens

LINK Solidarites:

http://www.solidarites.org/ourprog/Kenya/humanitarian-action.shtml

Kangundo Blind School

Jennifer is pupil in the Kangundo Blind School, Kenya

Today Aaron returned to the Kalimani Africa Brotherhood Church to meet the members of the Cove Community Church, from the Vancouver area of British Columbia, Canada. The Cove team have been in Kenya over the past week learning about the ministry of CBM and the Africa Brotherhood Church. We had the pleasure today of visiting the Kangundo District Education Board Primary School: founded in 1924, it is the oldest day school in this region of Kenya.

Our connection with the school is through the Kalimani Guardians of Hope who are helping 25 blind children with school uniforms and basic assistance with the Kangundo Blind School.

Brail class notes from one of the Kangundo students

The Kangundo DEB Primary School has over 1200 students from grades 1 to 8. As a government school, their class sizes run from 45 to 51 students per teacher, but classes like their sixth grade classes have 170 children to only three teachers. The forty visually impaired students come from a wide catchment area, some as far away as Nairobi.

Tim Bannister chatting with a little boy playing with a box (I think it was his imaginary truck) in the the narrow road near the Kalimani Church, Kangundo

Tim and Diane Bannister are our CBM team mates who facilitate short term missions in Kenya. Tim has been a bridge between the team and our partners in helping the volunteers understand the ministry and context in which we serve. They have had a very busy trip so far connecting with the various projects and leaders within the Africa Brotherhood Church and community.

Peter Kenward and Aaron walking along coffee fields

in Kangundo Village, Kenya

Rebecca Kenward visiting along the road

Principal Bernard Kivuva demonstrating the various teaching aids used in training visual impaired children in reading brail.

Each student learns to type their

class notes on a brail type writer

Brail Photocopier!

One of the five instructors in the blind school demonstrating their thermal form machine that is used to make copies of brail lessons and notes. Thanks to the generous gifts of various churches and organizations in Canada, the United States and Germany, the school has a good variety of equipment and tools for the blind school. During our visit, we met several teachers from across Kenya who were learning to use the brail type writers so that they could better serve visually impaired students in their schools.

All forty of the visually impaired students in the Kangundo Blind School live on campus among the 300 boarding students. As part of each students orientation, they walk every inch of the school's campus and become familiar with every nook and cranny.

The laughter and giggles of the visually impaired students were like music as we met with the teachers and school administrators. As we sat down with the children, they expressed gratitude for the help of the Guardians of Hope and the love of the Church. Please remember these children in your prayers and their school as it seeks to empower and equip this generation in Kenya.

Jacinta thanking the Guardians of Hope for their support of mattresses, uniforms and sanitary napkins that have helped her and the other students attending the blind school.

"Disability does not mean inability!"

Tim Bannister, Sean Graham, Rick Cook, Peter Kenward,

Lori Thicke, Rebecca Kenward, and Wendy Brown

singing to the visually impaired students

The beautiful hills of Ukambani, Kenya