People Living with HIV/AIDS Plant Gardens, Feed Themselves and their Families, and Generate Income

OCTOBER 2008 — C.S., 52, tested HIV-positive six years ago, and continues to look after her nine children and her 91-year-old husband in the southern city of Ziguinchor. The challenge of feeding this large family is daunting, since she must also find specific foods that allow her to maintain her health and battle the deadly virus.

For those living with HIV, eating enough and eating foods with the proper nutritional value can be a struggle. Nutritional health is a key ingredient for treatment success, and HIV/AIDS programs often include nutritional education or special food-distribution campaigns. Yet, while beneficiaries increasingly become educated about which high-nutrition foods they should eat, they often can't afford to buy or grow the fruits and vegetables that meet appropriate nutrition standards.

An FHI-managed USAID/Senegal program has initiated a micro-garden project that is linked with HIV treatment sites and trains, empowers, and provides nutrition and income for persons living with AIDS. Patients are also equipped with seeds, tools, and hands-on training so they can cultivate their own micro-gardens, using water-efficient strategies to grow fruits and vegetables high in nutrition and relying on organic mixtures to repel pests and fungal growth.

Coumba, a program beneficiary, started a micro-garden at her home then moved it to more space at a local school. Among other products, she cultivates lettuce, cabbage, cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, zucchini, and cashew nuts. She now grows enough to meet her own and her family's needs and sells the surplus to her neighbors and at the local market.

Agnes Senghor has also experienced the rewards of starting her own micro-garden. She says, "I am now free from debt. Before I had my own garden, I had to obtain vegetables on credit in order to sell them. Now I sell my own produce, keep the profit, and also have enough to feed myself and my family."

So far in 2008, more than 50 individuals living with HIV have been trained by the program and have helped to train other participants. All have reaped the rewards of growing food for themselves and their families and generating income. The program plants seeds that can change lives, improving health and nutrition and providing economic opportunities for individuals and families.

PHOTO: HIV/AIDS has increased the severity and frequency of food insecurity and malnutrition within households. Micro-gardens offer the seeds for life to start anew, strengthening nutritional health and economic opportunities for individuals and families. (FHI/Senegal)