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The Maa Trust has launched Healthy Nutrition & Kitchen Gardens Project in Maasai Mara. Pastoralism is the main source of income and livelihood for most of the Maasai Mara communities. Families in these communities are therefore forced to purchase all agricultural products for consumption. With their way of life, lack of nutrition information, and high poverty levels, these communities are highly affected by malnutrition.
To contribute to the health and wellbeing of families in Maasai Mara, The Maa Trust (TMT) will train 500 women in the region on healthy nutrition and kitchen garden development skills. These women represent a household. Using an estimate of 5 persons per household, the project will impact 2500 people. These trainings began on 25th February.
In February TMT conducted a Maa Beadwork Training of Trainers (ToTs) Capacity Building Workshop which was funded by the I&M Bank Foundation. During the training, various topics were covered including, healthy nutrition & kitchen gardens. The 18 women representatives who attended the training recognized the need for healthy nutrition. As a result, they requested The Maa Trust to train them and their group members on sustainable kitchen garden development and management
Quality health is a human right. TMT through its health project has been offering nutrition supplements to children in the community. This is however not enough to solve the malnutrition and dietary issues in the community. Training women on nutrition and how to make kitchen gardens is one method of addressing malnutrition and food insecurity in these communities. Therefore, through this project, TMT aims to better the inadequate balanced diet supply in the communities to enhance nutrition.
The project will work with the 18 existing Maa Beadwork women groups. Our Gender Project Officer, Isen Kipetu will train each group and set up a pilot kitchen garden in the home of one of the women in the group.
Topics covered during these trainings include:
Setting up a kitchen garden;
Securing a kitchen garden;
Watering and using organic methods for pest control;
Importance of a healthy balanced diet in ones’ household consumption;
Managing good and healthy nutrition habits;
The vegetable varieties planted in these kitchen gardens include; kales, spinach, onions, and African nightshade (managu).
Since water is a big challenge in the Mara, women who are very far from water sources are encouraged to recycle greywater, use bottled drip irrigation and mulching. They are also encouraged to plant during the rainy season whenever possible. This will ensure that they have strong plants before the dry spell start.
After the pilot trainings, the women will be left to implement and set up their gardens with frequent follow-up by Isen.
If any partners would like to support efforts in training these 500 women in healthy nutrition and kitchen garden development skills, please contact info@themaatrust.org or follow the link below to donate.