Kikondo, UG – Brothers growing vegetables to improve health, education, and income – 15 Dec 2017

The LBL brothers are planning to expand their organic vegetable garden to supply vegetables for families in neighboring villages. The brothers work with their father building houses and have found a ready market for vegetables by bringing vegetables with them to their building sites.

LBL is made up of 2 boys who stay with their father. Both boys are attending secondary school at Destiny Secondary School. Their mother left the family when the boys were 5 and 3 years old. They have been staying with their father ever since. The father helps in build houses in Kikondo and nearby villages. He has been teaching his children to build for 5 years now. For the last 2 years the boys have been able to contribute income to the family using their building skills. After they started earning money through building the boys decided to start a vegetable garden to further contribute to the family’s well-being.

Since starting their garden the family has saved roughly 20,000 UGS (US $6.00) per month by reducing their grocery bill. Recently, the LBL family has been selling vegetables to families where they go to build houses. They normally sell Kale and bitterberries because they are not commonly found in nearby village. This December they have sold 50,000 UGS (US $15.00) of vegetables. This is inspiring them to start a larger commercial vegetable garden. The LBL boys are planning to open up extension commercial vegetable gardens because they have acquired the knowledge and skills to operate and maintain vegetable farming as a business.

The boys spend their garden income on school supplies. Uniforms, notebooks, pens, pencils, and other tools quickly use up the money they earn. They hope to form a youth group in Kikondo village with help from Wamukisa so that they can start commercial vegetable and other crop growing. This will help them become more efficient with maintaining and operating the gardens. This will improve their output thus improve their incomes. The boys are excited because their experience leads them to believe there is a ready market for vegetables their sales will only be limited by their production.