Kitchen Gardens
Background
For many of the families that the Western Organization for People Living with HIV/AIDS (WOPLAH) serves food insecurity, lack of consistent income, and persistent health issues are the most serious threats to families’ health and well-being. These issues often inhibit parents’ ability to feed their children and themselves, send their children to school, adhere to their antiretroviral (ARV) drug treatment (if HIV-positive), and maintain good hygiene practices. Currently, Kitchen Gardens provide a source of healthy food and income for over 200 families and 1450 individuals. In 2024, there are currently 188 WOPLAH supported Kitchen Gardens.
Objectives
The intended impact of the kitchen garden program is to increase overall nutrition among orphans and vulnerable children (OVC) along with people living with AIDS (PLWA) and their families, to increase household economic status by emphasizing income generation through sale of vegetables, and to improve the overall health status of the project’s beneficiaries.
The Future
For the future of this project, WOPLAH plans to reach out to more support groups to aid with kitchen gardens, and to expand the size of current gardens. WOPLAH also intends to train beneficiaries how to utilize their local water sources to sustain their kitchen gardens. WOPLAH reasons that agricultural chemicals can be harmful to the immune systems of PLWA and aims to provide more training on organic farming techniques. In combination with their new Village Banking initiatives, WOPLAH is working to empower all beneficiaries to reach a point where their Kitchen Gardens are fully self-sustainable; over 150 Kitchen Garden projects are functioning independently of WOPLAH's financial support and mentorship.
