- According to Monica, the training by Siaya Muungano Network on kitchen garden was the best thing that happened to them.
- She says most women believe that vegetable farming is not possible due to the weather conditions and therefore prefer buying.
Image: FILE
Right in the interior of Alego Barding sub-location in Siaya county, 45-year-old Monica Ouma cannot hold her smile as she moves through her kitchen garden.
Monica has planted six different types of local vegetables — sukuma wiki and onions — in her small piece of land.
"When my children ask me for food, I just go to my back yard in the kitchen garden, pluck my vegetables and cook them," she says.
Monica, who is a mother of seven children, says the training by Siaya Muungano Network on kitchen garden was the best thing that happened to them.
She belongs to the Maendeleo Barding Group which is under the network.
Monica says after the training, she took the challenge and put up a kitchen garden in her backyard.
"Now when I am from the women meetings, I am not worried because my children will have something to eat," she said in her home in Siaya county.
Monica says most women believe that vegetable farming is not possible due to the weather conditions and therefore prefer buying.
However Monica says that, even though they were skeptical at first about the kitchen garden, they are currently reaping its benefits and encourage more women to venture into the agricultural activity.
"You can never go hungry when you have a small garden in your compound. More women should embrace this initiative to address challenges of food security occasioned by climate change," she says.
According to Rosemary Atieno, a trained agricultural officer, they have trained women on climate-smart agriculture by promoting agriculture that requires small space and water efficiency.
"You realise with climate change, water is becoming an issue. We are training them how to do small kitchen gardens using sacks, bottle and any other piece of items in their compound," Atieno says.
She adds that they have been training the women how to make use of the small resources and how to create awareness amongst themselves and sharing of ideas and knowledge.
Atieno, who is also the CEO of Community Mobilisation for Positive Empowerment, says that communities have now changed attitude and focus more on practical interventions to address and tackle challenges of food security.
"As a result, we are seeing the community starting to have some household security because they are harvesting vegetables from their kitchen gardens amongst others," she says.
The agricultural officers says that the kitchen garden has brought new perspective to the life of the women and needs to be supported by local organisations and counties to continue creating a difference in their lives and society as a whole.
Atieno also stressed that as a network of Community-Based Organisations trying to champion matters of climate change, they have come together to create awareness on the matter and how best they can adapt.
"We are trying to move away from mitigation a bit to more survival because where we are, we are at a danger zone and encourage survival activities," she says.
Climate change continues to be a threat in the whole world, including Kenya, with a number of counties facing severe drought and hunger.
Even as world leaders meet at the COP27 event at Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt for dialogue on the growing challenge of climate change, communities continue to suffer from the adverse effects of the climate change crisis, with women and children being the most affected.
Women champions and civil society organisations under the Muungano group, Led by Millicent Nyanja from Kenyanza Voluntary and Community Development Project, came together to address the challenges they are facing and the actions they need addressed.
Nyanja says that women who are agents of change for sustainable development and safeguarding the environment continue to bear the brunt of climate change.
This, she says, comes even as they remain excluded from participating in climate change decision-making spaces.
"They rarely participate in nor contribute to the elaboration of the key strategies to mitigate climate change and have insufficient access to resources," Nyanja says.
"We therefore strongly call upon the Governor [James] Orengo to develop and implement gender responsive climate actions, budgets, policies and plans from the county to the grassroots level that support women priorities in climate change, including local solutions."
The women want the governor to promote women’s full and equal representation and participation in leadership and climate change decision-making processes and spaces, including ward climate change committees.
They also wanted the county to promote and fund locally-led climate solutions by women that build their resilience to climate change.
The women said to ensure food security in Siaya county, there is need for provision of farm inputs, including seeds, fertilisers and machinery.
(edited by Amol Awuor)