Cultivating health through home vegetable gardens
Empowering mothers, nourishing children for sustainable solutions to malnutrition
It is almost mealtime in Ohag’s home located in Amara village, Refee Kassala locality.
For the mother of two, 5-year-old Sojood and, 19-month-old Idriss, a meal is incomplete without nutritious green vegetables.
As the pot starts boiling, Ohag and her son dash to the back of the house into a small but green garden with different vegetables (okra, parsley, sage arugula and pumpkin leaves). In a few minutes, they collect a bowl full of green vegetables that will complement the meal.
The vegetables rich in vitamins and minerals like iron, zinc, calcium, and other nutrients, are a daily delicacy for her family and have greatly improved and diversified the household diets.
Breastfeeding her children and providing them with nutritious complementary meals, especially during the first two years are some of the key takeaways Ohag picked from the UNICEF-supported sessions on infant and young child feeding at a nearby health facility. While her son Idriss continues to breastfeed, he is also old enough to eat other foods and greatly benefit from the homegrown vegetables.
“At the nutrition centre, the nutritionist told us to diversify the children’s diet. He also taught us how to start the gardens to have a variety of foods” she reminisces.
She would later also learn that nutritious meals with vegetables, protect children from disease, strengthen their immunity against illnesses and support their growth and development.
With her home located in an arid area coupled with long dry spells almost throughout the year, Ohag previously struggled to access vegetables to feed her children. Even in the markets, vegetables were scarce and pricey.
“The market where I bought vegetables was very far and I couldn’t go every day,” she shares.
“Sometimes when I got the vegetables preserving them was difficult. They would rot after a few days.”
Sustainable solutions through home vegetable gardens
While Sudan grapples with one of the largest malnutrition crises in the world, UNICEF and partners continue to invest in the prevention of all forms of malnutrition to protect children from life-threatening diseases and give them an opportunity to thrive.
Thanks to the No Time to Waste programme funded by the Government of the Netherlands, over 500 mothers enrolled with the Mother Support Group initiative, which provides information to other mothers in the wider community on nutrition, WASH and other critical topics, have been trained and equipped with skills, seeds, and tools to start vegetable gardens in their homes.
Under the programme, UNICEF and partners are protecting and promoting healthy diets, services and practices that support optimal nutrition, growth and development for all children, adolescents, and women using simple but sustainable initiatives like the home vegetable gardens that will support a continuous supply of fresh produce, enabling more nutritious diets for young children.
According to UNICEF’s Nutrition Specialist Khalid Tahir, “The target is to ensure each homestead has a small garden with sufficient vegetables needed to feed children with nutritious meals.”
Ohag’s green home garden
It’s been only three months and the vegetables in Ohag’s garden are thriving despite the scorching sun. And she has a lot to say about her home vegetable garden.
“I planted okra, pumpkin, sage, parsley and arugula.”
“I created the garden to provide vegetables and vitamins for my children,” she emphasizes.
Even with water scarcity in the locality and the hot temperatures almost all year round, Ohag has committed to collecting and sometimes buying water that supports the continuous supply of vegetables from her garden.
“Despite the difficulty in getting enough water, I planted the vegetables, and we are benefiting from it greatly,” she reaffirms.
Khalid Tahir has witnessed the immediate impact of the initiative and heard testimonies from mothers and caregivers. “It has proven to be useful in providing diversified diets for children,” he asserts.
As she feeds her son with a nutritious meal with vegetables from her backyard, Ohag’s message to mothers is to invest in the home garden so their children can be healthy.
