Kilimanjaro, TZ – Baby growing healthy with vegetable soup – 30 Sep 2014

The SIA family requested a garden in March because they wanted to begin growing healthy food to feed their newborn baby. Since starting their garden, the family of six has enjoyed eating healthy organic vegetables almost every day.

SIA Family terraced garden.

The mother of the family says that the family harvests vegetables for dinner every day and also sells around 10,000 TZS (US$6.25) per month of vegetables. This money helps pay for daily supplies like soap, flour, and rice as well as the water bill for the garden.

The benefit the family is most excited about is the nutritious addition to their new baby’s diet. The vegetable garden has allowed Mama SIA to cook a nutritious vegetable soup for her baby to eat every day in addition to breast milk. She plans on continuing to feed the baby this soup throughout the first five years of the child’s life, as these are the most important years for mental and physical development.

Mama SIA and her healthy baby.

So far the baby has received excellent health reports from the doctor and he is chubby and happy. He could not stop laughing during our visit!