Thanks to your amazing support, Solange and her five children are growing better health!  We partnered with Solange and her family here in Rwanda when her two year old was diagnosed with severe acute malnutrition. Solange received home visits from Gardens for Health agricultural agents and received chickens. She also received seeds for nutritious crops, like carrots, onions, beans, cassava, orange sweet potatoes and maize.

Solange was also immediately enrolled in health education and agricultural courses at her health clinic, which focused on everything from making balanced meals, to hygiene, to savings, and crop rotation. After six months, her two year old has gained over six pounds and now has no more extended belly.  And her chickens now have eight baby chickens! Thank you for truly providing a gift that keeps giving.

Thanks to your generous support, Josette is harvesting health for her grandchildren in Rwanda. We first partnered with Josette this past season when two of her grandchildren were diagnosed with severe acute malnutrition and brought to one of our health clinic partners. With your support, we were able to provide Josette with seeds for nutritious crops for three seasons, two chickens for laying eggs, regular home visits for technical agricultural assistance, and participation in sixteen education sessions on the causes of and solutions to malnutrition.

Now, thanks to your generosity and Josette’s incredible initiative, Josette’s grandchildren are moving from severe malnutrition to sustained health. Here Josette is pictured with harvests from the health center garden when we went to go visit her recently.

Thank you so much for your gift of health!

Caring for and supporting twins is very hard hard, especially when you are living on less than one dollar per day. We met Francine and her family in Rwanda when Francince brought her two young twins, both severely malnourished, to our health center partner. With your support, we were able to provide Francine’s family with seeds for nutritious crops for three seasons, two chickens for laying eggs, regular home visits for technical agricultural assistance, and participation in sixteen education sessions on the causes of and solutions to malnutrition.

Here the family is pictured after a training session with one of our community educators, holding up their nutrition training materials. Thank you for supporting Francine and her family on the path to better health!

We typically feature mothers as the primary recipients of our gifts as they are the caregivers attending training, cultivating home gardens, and feeding their children. However, when Emmanuel came to pick up chickens on behalf of his family on our livestock delivery day, we couldn’t have been more proud. Emmanuel’s family joined the Gardens for Health program in Rwanda when his younger brother was diagnosed with severe acute malnutrition.

With your support, we were able to provide the family with seeds for nutritious crops for three seasons, two chickens for laying eggs, regular home visits for technical agricultural assistance, and participation in sixteen education sessions on the causes of and solutions to malnutrition. Now Emmanuel’s brother is no longer severely malnourished, and meanwhile, Emmanuel will be starting school this month.

Thank you for supporting Emmanuel, his brother and the whole family!

Thanks to your support Rosetta is growing more health for her children. We first met Rosetta when her youngest child was diagnosed with malnutrition and brought to one of our health clinic partners. She and her child were enrolled in weekly cooking demonstrations, health education sessions, and received a home garden package of seeds and chickens.

Rosetta, pictured next to her garden with her children, is now growing carrots, spinach, orange sweet potatoes, soy beans, and amaranth and daily harvesting eggs from her chickens. Her youngest is now no longer severely malnourished. Rosetta credits the fact that vegetables are more readily available and now knowing how to prepare balanced meals, for the reason her children are growing well. She now believes they will never be hungry again–and the power is all hers.

Thank you Arianna, for your incredible generosity.

Marceline, a young single mother, joined the Gardens for Health program this season, after one of her boys, three years, was diagnosed with severe acute malnutrition. Marceline was immediately enrolled in weekly education sessions, cooking demonstrations, and provided with seeds and chickens for her home garden. After four months, her three year old gained six pounds and lost the signs of acute malnutrition — most visibly, the swollen belly. She is now growing carrots, green beans, pepper, onions, soy beans, orange sweet potatoes amaranth and daily harvesting eggs from her chickens.

She also started saving for the first time, which she learned from the training, and is eager to save more so that all her boys can go to school. She recently graduated from our training sessions, but doesn’t want to leave so much does she love classes at the health clinic with other mothers in the community.

Here Marceline is pictured in the beans she planted, along with her own “little beans.”

Thank you Christianne, Marcela, Tracy, and Sterling and Melinda for your lifesaving investment in this family.

Thanks to Elena, Kim and Laura, Gaudette and her five children are growing and eating lots of food–and are healthier as a result. Gaudette joined the Gardens for Health program at her health clinic when one of her children– age four — was diagnosed with severe acute malnutrition. She weighed 10 kilos and had severe oedema — or swelling — of her stomach, face and feet.

Gaudette was immediately enrolled in weekly trainings, cooking demonstrations, and provided with seedlings for her home garden and two chickens. She said that the weekly trainings have provided her with the resources to improve her family’s health–simple strategies like handwashing, soaking beans, preparing balanced meals, and family planning.

Here Guadette is pictured with her son, who has gained three kilos and now no longer has the symptoms of malnutrition.  They are also pictured with Samuel, one of the Gardens for Health agricultural agents, while he was on a visit to check out her crops. Gaudette’s healthy harvests now include beets, soybeans, amaranth, cabbages, papaya, and sweet potatoes…and five healthy children.  Thank you.

The day we helped Afisa plant her garden was a rainy one, but we did it as a team effort, and in the rain, we planted green leafy vegetables, beans, fruit trees, beets, cabbages, and orange sweet potatoes. Afrisa is twenty eight and is a single mother of four children–her youngest son was diagnosed with severe acute malnutrition and provided with short-term food aid a few months ago.

Thanks to your support, we are helping Afisa on the path from short-term food aid, to long-term food security. We planted a small plot next to her home in addition to a terrace just below her house, which is actually quite a bit of land to grow a lot of food. Afisa also walks nearly four hours each week to her health center, where she receives training from Gardens for Health on malnutrition on various topics like family planning, gender-based violence, HIV, breastfeeding, and cooking–planting her home garden is just the beginning of our partnership. Thank you for supporting Afisa and her family to plant good health.

You can read more about planting Afisa’s garden here; that day some journalists happened to be passing through: http://itbeganinafrica.com/inspiring-people/rwanda-home-grown-solutions-scourge-malnutrition

Here is Donatille, her husband and one of her children with the beginnings of their home garden. Thanks to your support, Donatille is receiving the food security assistance that her children and family need to grow their way out of chronic malnutrition. Two of Donatille’s children were diagnosed with malnutrition and received short term food aid–but after minimal improvements, they became malnourished again.

Donatille participated in our last season of education sessions on the causes of malnutrition and after graduating, she received two chickens. However, Donatille still wants to keep coming back. She has formed a cooperative with other mothers in our program so that they can save, meet and farm together. Thanks to your support, Donatille is planting amaranth, orange sweet potatoes, maize, beans, avocado and papaya, in addition to other crops in her community garden. Donatille is an incredibly inspiring woman that has survived some extraordinary challenges–her commitment to education, her community, and her family’s health is in turn extraordinary. Thank you for your investment in Donatille and her family.

Florence is a single mother who had been struggling to feed her young son as well as her other children. She was enrolled in the Gardens for Health program at her health center this past season when a community health worker identified her son with malnutrition. She has since and since been an incredibly active and inspiring participant of our program. She hasn’t missed a single training, despite the long distance to the health center each week. She says that she has learned a lot from the training, particularly in terms of providing balanced meals that help her support her children’s growth. Before, she did not know that green vegetables held any value, now she tries to include them every day.

With your support, we have provided her with seeds for her home garden, where she has planted leafy greens, orange sweet potatoes, maize, beans, avocado and passion fruit on the small space of land next to her home, and she most recently received two chickens. Her love and commitment to her children is inspiring and we, in turn, are inspired by your assistance in helping her access the resources she needs to fully support them. Thank you.