Kenya: Nyeri Philanthropist Promoting Urban Agriculture To Enhance Food Security

“With such a garden in place, you don’t have to go buying everything that you need in your house,” Waithira continued.

By  Samuel  Waititu KNA
April 23, 2020

Excerpt:

The project, according to the initiator, Waithira Maruru, entails equipping families living within towns, especially in informal settlements with knowledge on how to set up kitchen gardens using locally available materials such as bags to grow vegetables for consumption, as well as income generation.

As poor urban families find it difficult to put food on the table, as a result of business and job loses occasioned by the Coronavirus pandemic, Ms. Waithira feels, embracing this technique holds the key to food security and self-reliance.

“We cannot afford to give them food daily, but we can give them skills to enable them fend for their families, as well as put some money in their pockets,” says Waithira.

Waithira, who besides transferring the knowledge to them is also providing the bags and seedlings, she says her main target group is the young children who are at home following the closure of all learning institutions to curb the spread of the deadly respiratory disease.

This, she said, besides keeping them busy will help them understand and appreciate the importance of agriculture which is a vital sector in any society.

“We want the children to take care of these sack gardens to keep them busy as well as inculcate in them, a culture of hard work,” Waithira said as she took children of Chania Estate in Nyeri Town, through the steps of setting up such a garden.

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