Action in Africa’s Garden Project

We moved into our new facility, The Center, in January 2015. Aside from the central location, the spacious property, and the beautiful building, we were most excited about the large garden that came with it The garden was already producing promising fruits and vegetables, making it easy to envision a future sustainable garden. 

Thanks to a recent generous donor, we have officially launched Action in Africa's Garden Project. After months of planning, the backyard garden is going through a nice change. We are adding a stone pathway with navigation signs created by our students in art class, to easily locate items in the garden. So far we have planted vegetables and fruits such as broccoli, kale, mint, sage, lettuce, beans, corn, cabbage, tomatoes, watermelon, passion fruit, and strawberries among others.

The garden is one of Action in Africa’s pride and joys because we believe it is a tool to teach students about agriculture—one of Uganda’s best assets. There is a common misconception here that you need a huge plot of land to grow vegetables and fruits, so hopefully our garden can be a great demonstration for the community. To make sure it is properly taken care of, Daddy Kato, one of our neighbors and a well versed farmer, looks after it. Two of our students, Jonathan and Joel, assist with water the garden every evening while other kids are responsible for weeding during the weekend.  As the kids get older, we are excited to give them more responsibilities with the garden.

“I am so proud of it since I get to learn about biological specimen which has helped me improve my academics,” said Joel about the garden. He is ten years old! 

Along with being a demonstration garden, we hope to be able to give the kids a goodie bag of vegetables or fruits to take back to their families at the end of each day.