Nutrition Archives - Page 2 of 3

4 Ways to Improve Your Mental Health by Gardening

June 14, 2018

Guest Author, Maria Cannon, wrote this article about the mental health benefits of gardening. While DIG often focuses on the food security, nutrition, and income benefits of our garden programming there are so many other gains including these listed below.

Climate Resilience

DIG Deeper: Batwa Program Entering Year 2

April 16, 2018

After getting on the ground in November 2016, DIG spent two months undergoing an intensive site assessment through a baseline study, stakeholder analysis, committee and leadership meetings, crop viability study, building a team, and fine tuning the implementation model.

Nutrition

Resources for Success

September 9, 2015

Project Redwood Foundation(PRW) supported the original development of DIG’s resource manual toolkit, which includes a Garden Manual, a Nutrition Manual, a Pest andPlant-Disease Library, as well as a Protocol to Developing a Community Garden Program. In 2014, PRW supported the deployment of this toolkit to multiple organizations in order for them to establish sustainable agriculture programs and demonstration gardens. DIG distributed manuals and technical support in 7 countries to 18 different organizations, 3 schools, and 6 HIV support groups.

Food Security

A Young Mother Stepping Up

September 9, 2015

Through a partnership with the Lwala Community Alliance (LCA) in North Kamagambo, Kenya, DIG met and started working with a young woman named Eunice. LCA had been assisting her through their Out of School Mentoring for Girls program. Recently widowed and only 26 years old, Eunice was left to care single-handedly for her four children, ages ten, four, two and one. She has a lot stacked against her. She knows that at any moment her late husband’s brothers could legally

Community Transformation

The Wechaya HIV Support Group

September 8, 2015

It’s an early, cool Wednesday morning; the sun is still low in the sky, but the chorus of cicadas and crickets reminds us of the heat that’s coming. The Wechaya HIV Support Group is meeting in their community garden. Quiet talking and laughing can be heard as women dressed in vibrantly patterned skirts make their way down the narrow cow paths and gather in the shade of a broad mango tree. Organized through DIG’s Mobile Farmer Field School program,

Nutrition

Day 1 of Living Below the Line for DIG: Eat Your Vegetables

April 28, 2015

Monday: Day 1 of the challenge.Yesterday was the first day of my Live Below the Line Challenge for Development in Gardening. It occurred to me while I was devouring my dinner how little I ate that day (details and photos below). The realization didn’t just happen out of nowhere like- funny, all I ate today were two meals, I wonder what’s on TV? But more like – wow, I was so hangry before I sat down for this meal I didn’t even notice they

Nutrition

Living Below the Line for DIG

April 27, 2015

Being the Executive Director for Development in Gardening, an organization represented in this year’s Live Below the Line campaign I felt it was only right that I commit to actually participating in the campaign myself. I certainly could not be asking others to do something I would not do, and I saw it as an opportunity to connect with DIG’s work in a way I don’t typically experience in the US. I decided several months ago to take the 5 day challenge,

Community Transformation

Why Home Gardens are Important!

December 2, 2014

DIG first started doing home gardens in 2006 thanks to Koumba! While Koumba was being inspired by DIG’s training, we were being inspired by her. It was she who asked for and received DIG’s first Home Garden. She asked if we could help her with some of the initial seed money to get a garden started in the small space behind her home. Koumba knew she could feed her family from this otherwise discarded space and would use her

Nutrition

The Re-discovery of Food

October 13, 2014

By: Maggie Black, an independent writer on issues of international development Today, nearly one billion people in the world go hungry on a daily basis. In Africa, the figure is around 240 million. This is a cause of international outcry – when it tips over into starvation and famine. But the day-to-day problem is rarely examined from the perspective of those whose cooking-pots and eating bowls are half-empty, whose stomachs constantly cramp, who look and feel dull, listless and out

Food Security

What it Takes to End Hunger

June 11, 2014

By Maggie Black Vida Aooko Bitta, 30 years old and mother of four, is one of a DIG (Development in Gardening) team of community facilitators in Rongo District, Western Kenya. What she and the team are trying to do is transform the diet, improve the well-being and fill the pocket-books of local farming families. Many of these are among the 240 million Africans who regularly go hungry. Vida’s home is just a mile away from the Lwala community hospital

Nutrition

Emily Achieng’s Ode to DIG

July 3, 2012

Rarely is DIG a muse for poetry but apparently something about our project sparked Emily’s creative juices! We also want to thank Mr. Tobias for capturing her poem and emailing it to us so that we can share it with all of you! After you read this poem, if you want to read more about Emily’s story click here. DIG by Emily AchiengDIG! DIG! DIG!Who will help me DIG?In reality, everything is in DIG. Open your eyes and see!the richesproper

History of Our Growth

Rona, a Positive Example from Kafue

February 24, 2012

Rona first joined Railway clinic in Kafue, Zambia with a Mothers to Mothers (M2M) program. Railway’s M2M program helps educate new mothers living with HIV how to prevent mother to child transmission. Rona is a mother of six. Her youngest child Kiki continues to fall short of the developmental norms of children her age. Rona became interested in the DIG program at Railway Clinic so that she might learn about nutrition and how to produce her own food in order