This is the second blog in a two-part series about GardenAfrica, a UK-based non-profit organization that helps families and communities in Southern Africa establish organic gardens to improve livelihoods and nutrition. To read the first post, see: Cultivating Health, Community and Solidarity.
Working with SAHIV staff, GardenAfrica selected patients from seven different clinics to participate in trainings and to help maintain the one hectare training garden. (Photo credit: GardenAfrica)In Southern Africa, there’s a stigma associated with HIV. Many people hide the disease from their friends and family and feel isolated from their communities. And, in addition to an array of health problems that go along with HIV, such as thrush and other chronic infections, many people with HIV in Southern Africa are not getting enough to eat.
“Often the connection between healthcare and nutrition is not made,” says GardenAfrica co-founder and Programmes Director, George McAllister. GardenAfrica is a UK-based non-profit organization working in southern Africa that helps families and communities establish organic gardens in small private plots, schools, hospitals and other public areas. “But you can’t get better if you aren’t getting enough to eat and the right vitamins and nutrients.”
In 2006, GardenAfrica partnered with South African HIV Society (SAHIV), an organization that provides treatment, education, and support for people living with HIV, to create a training garden at the largest hospitals in South Africa, Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital. The garden, the two organizations hoped, would provide a source of inspiration for the hundreds of patients that passed through the hospital gates every day to take back to their homes, improving the health of their families and their communities.
“Hospitals,” says McAllister, “lend themselves to strong garden projects. They have high walls and guards to protect the plants, and hundreds of people are coming and going every day. It’s also a unique opportunity to help people learn the connection between what they eat and their own health.”
Working with SAHIV staff, GardenAfrica selected patients from seven different clinics to participate in trainings and to help maintain the one hectare training garden. “We selected people from clinics and then we developed gardening groups around each clinic. Each gardening group then selected two members to attend the regular trainings,” explained McAllister. The training participants were then responsible for taking the weekly lessons back to their clinics to share newly learned information about permaculture, irrigation and water conservation, and indigenous crops with the rest of the group.
The patients participating in the project take home the tomatoes, spinach, chard, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, fruits, and herbs they are able to cultivate and harvest, and, in exchange, pass along their new skills to the daily stream of patients coming to the hospital for treatment. They also provide starter packets full of seeds and gardening instructions.
And while McAlister emphasizes that improved nutrition is critical for improving health only in addition to standard medical treatment, she also says that many useful remedies can be found in the garden. “One man was growing beautiful produce but still he was getting thinner and thinner,” says McAlister. “It turned out he had oral thrush.” Oral thrush is an infection in the mouth that sometimes occurs in patients with HIV, causing the development of sores that are painful and making it difficult to eat. “We were able to introduce him to a type of plant that helped combat his symptoms and eventually they subsided, allowing him to eat again,” says McAllister.
Many of the clinics have feeding programs, daily meals for patients and anyone in need. GardenAfrica project participants used the meals as an opportunity to give cooking demonstrations and introduce locally produced and prepared food. “These cooking lessons create a more positive feeding process,” says McAllister. “This way people living positively with HIV can pass that long to other people and create a sense of community to combat the sense of isolation that many struggling with HIV feel.”
To read more about how improved nutrition can improve health and livelihoods, see: Cultivating Health, Community and Solidarity, Cultivating an Interest in Agriculture and Wildlife Conservation, Malawi’s Real Miracle, Emphasizing Malawi’s Indigenous Vegetables as Crops, Finding ‘Abundance’ in What is Local, Honoring the Farmers that Nourish their Communities and the Planet, and Investing in Projects that Protect Both Agriculture and Wildlife.
