Mutoni, aged 4, lives with her mother and grandparents in a house on a steep slope in Rwanda. Despite beginning with poor soil, Mutoni’s family has planted and harvested cabbages, carrots, beets, and amaranth in the last season with the help of Gardens for Health’s agricultural agent Samuel, who visits the family regularly for technical assistance. Mutoni and her mother have also been going to the health center on a weekly basis for cooking demonstrations and education sessions with Gardens for Health. All this has resulted in Mutoni gaining weight and slowly but surely losing some of the signs of what was once quite prominent malnutrition.

Thanks to George, Henry and Cheya, Mutoni’s family is growing their own good health!

We shot this picture of Beatrice after she picked a fresh carrot from her soil. Before her partnership with Gardens for Health through her local health center, Beatrice’s son Freddie, pictured on her left, was malnourished, both underweight and underheight for his age, and Beatrice did not have any home garden. With Gardens for Health’s package of support, consisting of seeds, technical visits with an agronomist, weekly cooking demonstrations and education sessions to supplement the short-term food aid supplied by the health center, Freddy has already gained 3 kilos in three months. Beatrice is now growing food for her family and she is growing food to sell. And she’s pretty proud.

Paul Cezanne once said, “The day is coming when a carrot, freshly observed, will start a revolution.” While Cezanne was talking about the need for a revolution in art, we are now in need of fresh observation, and indeed revolution, in our food and health systems. A carrot may be a small vegetable from Beatrice’s garden, but it symbolizes simply and powerfully the small revolution that Beatrice is making.

With so much gratitude to Sarah, George, Henry for their generous support!

Dear Charlotte and Kristin,

Thanks to your generosity, Agnes and her son Eric are now on a much healthier path. Eric, who is one year old, has been in and out of the malnutrition ward for months, losing any improvements he makes at the ward upon returning home. Agnes has had trouble producing enough breastmilk and has tried introducing foods like porridge into his diet, but buying porridge is expensive and not always a viable option for Agnes.

Since Agnes began participating in the Gardens for Health trainings and with your initial support, she has been able to plant a home garden.  She has been able to begin growing carrots, spinach, swiss chard, and orange sweet potatoes. This is a big step forward for her and Eric, as her garden will provide them both much needed nourishment.

Participating in bi-weekly training sessions at her health center has taught Agnes how to allocate resources and save money so that she can afford porridge for her child. Thank you so much Charlotte and Kristin, for helping Agnes start a home garden and improve her and her son’s life!

Mama Alphonsine from Rwanda, is only twenty-three years old and already has three children. Here she is pictured with her two youngest — one baby who is a year old and the other a month-and-a half old.

Maternal and newborn health are intimately connected and Alphonsine desperately wants to provide sufficiently for herself and her children. Appropriately, just before Mother’s Day and following Gardens for Health training on malnutrition, Alphonsine decided to take matters into her own hands by growing her own garden.

With the support of Lesley, Kelsey, Kate, and Margaret Alphonsine is able to grow a better future for her children. Thank you, and Happy Mother’s Day!

Mama and her five children live in Gasabo District, Rwanda. She is a single mother who works hard on other people’s fields to provide for her family, but still, all of her five children are chronically stunted or malnourished. Thanks to Kristin, Gardens for Health has been able to provide Mama with the resources to farm her own small field, initiating a home garden with vegetables and fruit trees. She will also receive regular follow up visits from a skilled agronomist, and participate in a three month education program at her local health center.

Mama is already on the path to establishing her own self-sufficiency. While attending the education sessions, which deal with a variety of topics related to malnutrition, she has gone on to get her own HIV-test, pursue family planning measures, and purchase health insurance for all five children. Moreover, Mama is usually the first to arrive to cooking demonstrations at her health center and the last to leave, so passionate is she about improving the health and nutrition of her children. With Mama and her family, it is clear how a simple investment leads to a multitude of positive health effects. Thank you, Kristin!