In the busy, developed and very urban town of Lalibela in Northern Ethiopia, something green is springing up.

GARDENING YOUR WAY TO HEALTH

Residents of this city have stared to grow vegetables locally with the help of Plan UK and a partner organization and are improving their diets and their incomes.

Plan UK and their partner have distributed seeds to over 300 local families and taught the skills needed to cultivate the small pieces of land available within the city. Crops include Swiss chard, lettuce, cabbage, tomatoes, carrots and green peppers. This provides a wonderful opportunity to teach young people agricultural skills, sustainable practices and the value of good nutrition. Diets have improved throughout the city and the excess produce is sold locally in the tourist town where the extra income is most welcome to the mostly poorer families.

Plan’s food and nutrition specialist in Lalibela says:

“Producing vegetables at household level using the smallest available space can significantly change family diet and improve household incomes.”

This isn’t the first time Plan UK has taught skills that enable communities to support themselves, characteristic of Plan UK‘s commitment to longer-term solutions and community involvement and autonomy.

The town has embraced the practice and the results are almost instant. Habtamu Getahun, a local father of five says:

“Plan taught me how to prepare land for vegetable production and provided me with vegetable seeds to get started. And my wife was given training in making compost.”

13 year old Yeshiwork enjoys working in her family’s garden. She especially enjoys watering their crops.

“I support my family with watering our vegetable garden at least twice a day. I enjoy working on the vegetable garden because we harvest vegetables to eat and sell.”

SOWING THE SEEDS OF CHANGE

The ideas and practices are quickly spreading. Once the idea took root, members of the community began passing it along to their neighbors and people in nearby towns. The community is also teaching others the skills and sustainable practices that make growing crops in an urban environment possible, ensuing a higher success rate for other, similar communities.

“Hopefully, many people will benefit from knowledge about urban agriculture and produce vegetables and fruit for their own family and the local market”, says Habtamu.