The gardener women contribute to their household income

A green environment, fresh air, bird sounds and a warm welcome with ready vegetables—that’s Fazela’s kitchen garden.

Fazela, 30, lives with her five children in Meldan village of Enjil district, Herat. She is the head of her household, having lost her husband two years ago. After she lost her husband, Fazela could not afford living expenses. She was supported by her family but it was not enough. She was in search of a way to meet her financial challenges.

One day a team from World Vision knocked on her door. “The village head and some other people came to our house and talked about kitchen gardening. I was excited if I had a garden in my house,” says Fazela.

In the past, part of her yard was useless. With the support of World Vision, Fazela used that piece of land for kitchen gardening. “I thank the organisation [World Vision] who helped me with this big change in my life,” she said. She received five days of training in kitchen gardening. “I learned to grow different types of vegetables in my garden. I learned about planting, the diseases, how to treat them well. I also learned about irrigation. At the end of the training, they provided us with enough kits to start kitchen gardening,” says Fazela.

With this, Fazela has an income source now. “I grow vegetables during four seasons. I sell my products to market and neighbours,” she said. While she gets about USD$30 per month, Fazela feeds her children with the vegetables as well. “I provide fresh vegetables to my children. This helped them to grow healthy. I also use the earned money from kitchen gardening to purchase pens and notebooks for my children,” says Fazela.

Khandan, 35, has also received support for kitchen gardening. She can even provide herbal medicines to keep her vegetables fresh. “I use local items to make herbal medicines. I am really happy and I enjoy a lot doing kitchen gardening, while I was only busy with house chores in the past,” says Khandan.

Four hundred seventy families live in Meldan. According to Farhad, 32, the village head, 80 per cent of these families are internally displaced people who fled their places of origin due to insecurity. They are busy with agriculture now. 

Farhad appreciates this initiative because “the village women were busy only for house chores. They were dependent financially on a male breadwinner. With this initiative [kitchen gardening], many women engaged in agriculture activities in their houses to feed their children and earn income,” he says. Farhad claims the number of malnourished children in his village has decreased. “It impacted children’s health too,” he says. He also emphasizes its impact on climate change. “Our village is greener comparing to the past,” says Farhad.

In addition to this, the village has enough water resources provided through a water canal and wells which allows the women to water their kitchen gardens.

Nasir, 51, supports Meldan’s kitchen gardens owners to sell their products in the local market. Because of cultural restrictions, women cannot sell their vegetable products directly in the local market. “With the support of the village head, I connected with these women to collect and deliver their products to local markets. The buyers are very much happy because the products are clean and ready to sell,” says Nasir. According to him, each woman receives approximately USD$30 per month. However, it depends on the size of the yard.

Through the provision of vocational skills, livelihood opportunities and diversified food sources, World Vision Afghanistan empower vulnerable households socially and economically to improve the standard of living and facilitates an environment for child well-being.

With this support, 1,000 women started kitchen gardening. Before that, based on beneficiary selection criteria consisting of availability of the land, presence of an irrigation source, interest in farming, having street working children, and more, these women were selected. 

World Vision conducted five days of training for women gardeners. They learned about the importance of gardening, types of vegetables, land preparation, fertilizing, cultivation, irrigation, pests and diseases, weed control, financial literacy and so on. After the completion of the training, participants received a package containing ten types of vegetable seeds and tool kits to start their work.

With this initiative, women gardeners have fresh vegetables they can use for family consumption and sell to their neighbours and local markets to decrease the hunger crisis.

Mr Abdul Basir Ahmadi, the head of the Family Economics Management Department in the Department of Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock of Herat province, appreciates the efforts World Vision made in providing livelihood opportunities, particularly for women in the western part of Afghanistan.

“The purpose of kitchen gardens is to promote the cultivation of vegetables to improve the nutritional status and food security among families. We want to promote the cultivation of vegetables in the villages and districts through kitchen gardens so that people can use vegetables in their daily food, as well as make some money by selling the surplus. Through World Vision’s support, we supported 1000 women to establish kitchen gardens in created kitchen gardens in Herat districts. The majority of these women were satisfied with this initiative. The activity enabled women to make a significant contribution to their family economy,” Mr Ahmadi says.

The Family Economy Management Department works with women involved within vegetable and livestock rearing to improve food security, contribute to and increase their household income, meet their household’s nutritional needs, and raise awareness on dietary diversity. Mr Ahmadi recommends for the donors extend such programmes to other districts that have limited knowledge of vegetable production.

Thanks to World Vision Hong Kong for the financial support.