Sack Gardens in Eastleigh

Eastleigh, Nairobi

Erica and Coral visiting a home in Juja, Eastleigh

Earlier this week, the team from Nova Scotia joined us in Eastleigh as we helped Laura Muema following up with the eight refugee women who had won our vertical gardening contest in Eastleigh through Canadian Baptist Ministries Urban gardening project. Each of the women had successfully started sack gardening outside of the Eastleigh Community Centre and are now having a regular harvest of fresh produce for their families.

Climbing narrow stairways in the crowded

apartment blocks of Eastleigh

Laura Muema presenting prizes to

two of the Somali Women in Eastleigh

Each of the winners of the contest (8 women in the top three teams)

received food bundles to help supplement their families diet

Sack Gardens in Eastleigh

Urban Gardening

Iftin student, Ikran, very proud of her sack garden

in the Iftin Unity Garden at the

Eastleigh Community Centre

It has been so encouraging to see how well the Iftin ladies are doing in their gardening project both at the community centre and throughout the city. We now have students starting gardens of their own in three communities outside of Eastleigh. We pray for their success, as they seek to help their families improve their diet and income.

Sack Gardens are doing well in Eastleigh

The Unity Garden is now supporting families with sweet potatoes, peppers, tomatoes, spinach and kales. "What is next?" we asked some of the girls today.

"Fruit trees!" one of the students answered. And no doubt, it won't be long before this will be a reality.

Nasra finds a little space in her apartment

building to grow a sack garden

Erica and Laura helping the Noor Self Help Group

prepare for an upcoming Christmas Sale

Thank you for upholding these ladies in your prayers.

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

Urban Guardians

The Urban Side of the Guardians of Hope

Walking the labyrinth of narrow streets that make up the sprawling Zimmerman Estate in Northeastern Nairobi, we are on our way to visit three groups of women who are accessing micro credit through their Guardians of Hope groups. These loans make it possible for them to support their families through small business.

While we often think of the Guardians of Hope as a rural program, that helps groups caring for AIDS orphans and supporting people living positively with HIV and AIDS, urban ministry is an extremely important side of the GOH.

AIDS is a dire issue in urban centres throughout Africa, where millions of people come to find work and a better future for their families. But in reality, unemployment and poverty lead to high rates of prostitution, addiction, and violence. Without a little land to grow a basic kitchen garden, families desperately need cash to feed themselves. The steadily rising food prices in cities like Nairobi make this even more difficult.

Earlier this week, it was encouraging to meet with Guardians in places like Eastleigh, Haruma, and Zimmerman. Impoverished corners of Nairobi, where Guardians of Hope are determined to make a better life for themselves and their community. From a couple of women selling beans and maize on the street to day labours, to a patient mother knitting school uniform sweaters and hats to sell to her neighbours, Guardians are accessing small low interest loans to build sustainable incomes that provide for their families.

Beautiful Creations

Patty and Erica meeting with Joyce & Agnus in their two room apartment that they share together with another woman and eight children. Together they have taken loans to build a stock of socks and underwear that they buy at wholesale and sell throughout Zimmerman walking along the streets. Over the past few years, they have expanded their business to also sell sandals and homemade necklaces that they make together in their home.

Patrick Miana (ACC&S Guardians of Hope project officer) and Henry Mwangi (ACC&S director of developement), with Erica, Patty and Guardians of Hope beneficiaries in Zimmerman, Nairobi.