Kikondo, UG – After job loss, father uses vegetable garden to rebuild health and income – 5 May 2017

Organic vegetable gardening is offering Mr. KGK the opportunity to rebuild a dependable income after he lost his job as a carpenter. The garden he started with Wamukisa is helping him take care of his three children and recover from tuberculosis.

Mr. KGK lost his job with a construction company in South Sudan after he was diagnosed with tuberculosis. The tuberculosis led to other infections and Mr. KGK could not work for nearly 8 months. He was forced to leave his good paying job in South Sudan and return home to Kikondo to take care of his children. Mr. KGK is a widower and without an income he could not pay for somebody to stay home and care for his children.

Mr. KGK initially became interested in collaborating with Wamukisa to grow vegetables because his doctor recommended that eating more vegetables would help his body deal with tuberculosis better. Wamukisa requires families who want to start organic vegetable gardens to attend training sessions prior to starting a garden. In the Intro to Vegetable Gardening training session Mr. KGK learned that growing vegetables can have economic benefits in addition to health benefits. This piqued his interest further and he started a garden in February 2017.

Mr. KGK estimates that his garden produces 30,000 UGS (US $9.09) of value for his family each month. He uses most of what he harvests to feed his three sons and sells some vegetables for his sons’ school fees and his own monthly transport to the Mpigi District Hospital for TB treatment.

After looking after his garden for a few weeks, Mr. KGK reported to Wamukisa manager Michael Kiwanuka that he was often to exhausted from illness to do everything he wanted to do in the garden. Kiwanuka advised the Mr. KGK get his sons involved in looking after the garden. “One of our main objectives is to teach our young children these skills early on,” explains Wamukisa, “So we really encouraged [Mr. KGK] get his children more involved. He has really seen a big impact from this.”

Mr. KGK has a lot of land and is now considering how he can expand his vegetable garden to make gardening and agriculture his family’s primary income source. He does not believe he will be able to return to carpentry because of his illness, but he does believe that an efficiently designed farm could be run with his children to provide consistent income and keep them all in school.