Nixon and I made the most of a break in the rain this morning and headed outside to create our own gunny sack garden and plant it with kale seeds. ChildFund New Zealand are using this innovative and eco-friendly initiative with families in Kenya to help address severe malnutrition in children. I’m fighting an ongoing battle of wills with Nixon right now as we struggle to maintain a balanced diet now that he has a fairly established pallette. I can’t begin to imagine how hard this would be for mums in remote Kenya with scarce nutritional knowledge, water and resources.
A super-easy gunny sack garden helps to provide a family of six supplementary veges for three months plus these little wonders have also been implemented within Kenyan schools to provide for nutritious lunches. This project start-to-finish took my little helper and I 30 minutes max and gave me some brilliant insight into how I can better maximise space in my garden and use resources more efficiently. The gunny sack garden is brilliantly simple yet contains a gravel drain for water economy and will slowly decompose leaving only waste that can be re-used. In about 4-6 weeks we will have a bounty of kale ready to harvest!
Beginning a conversation with your kids and creating a gunny sack garden of your own will help highlight the huge nutritional deficit that is faced by many Kenyan families. We can all help by considering purposeful gifts this Mother’s Day and shopping from ChildFund’s Gifts that Grow Catalogue.
The same mothers in Kenya who are benefiting from the Nutrition Training programme provided by ChildFund donations are also part of Maka Emali, a livelihoods project. With the additional support of NZ artist Chris Delany, the project has helped revive almost lost cultural arts. They make stunning woven baskets which are sold around the world including in NZ through Iko Iko stores (http://ikoiko.co.nz/search?q=kenya&search=Submit). I have one of these beautiful baskets to give away! To enter, please head over to The Best Nest on Facebook and follow the instructions on the contest image. Competition closes Sunday May 3rd 10pm.
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