⭐ 9. Food Security & Home Gardening Program
Our Purpose: Help vulnerable households and schools grow their own nutritious food using low-cost, climate-smart gardening methods improving child nutrition, reducing hunger, and promoting long-term food self-reliance.
EXPANSION: Activities
▪Train families to grow vegetables in used sacks filled with soil, compost, and stones
▪Use vertical holes in the sides to plant multiple layers of crops (e.g. sukuma, dodo, nakati, onions, carrots)
▪Ideal for homes with no land, especially single mothers or urban poor
▪Teach watering, pest prevention, composting
▪Monitor gardens monthly with photos and harvest tracking
👉 Sack gardens are cheap, simple, and space-saving and can feed a family from a doorstep.
▪Establish gardens at CHOCU-partnered schools
▪Engage pupils in planting, watering, and harvesting
▪Assign agriculture clubs to maintain and monitor
▪Grow food for the school’s feeding program
▪Use as a teaching tool for science, environment, and teamwork
▪Host harvest days and school gardening competitions
👉 These gardens give children both skills and food and help support CHOCU’s nutrition program.
Organize 1–3 day workshops on:
▪backyard farming
▪composting and mulching
▪pest control
▪water harvesting
▪seed saving
▪crop rotation
▪natural fertilizers
▪Use local agriculture extension officers or model farmers as trainers
▪Provide starter kits: hoes, seeds, compost, jerrycans, watering cans
▪Hold trainings in schools, churches, or community fields
👉 Families learn how to farm for food, not just for sale. These small trainings shift mindsets from survival to nutrition.
➡️ Especially helpful for grandmothers, young fathers, and recovering families.
▪Teach families how to cook balanced meals using what they grow
▪Cover food group basics: starch, protein, vitamins, fats
▪Emphasize local, affordable foods (beans, greens, pumpkin, sweet potato, groundnuts, eggs)
▪Invite mothers to cook together and share meals
▪Include child feeding guidance (ages 6–24 months)
▪Celebrate with community nutrition days
👉 You can grow food but if you don’t know how to prepare it properly, children still suffer.
🔷 EXPANSION: Impact
▪Daily meals improve in quantity and quality
▪Families stop skipping meals
▪Children no longer go to school hungry
▪Less reliance on food handouts or loans
▪More vegetables in the diet
▪Children gain weight appropriately
▪Fewer clinic visits due to nutrition-related illnesses
▪Families begin teaching neighbors
✅ Summary:
This program turns hunger into harvest and builds a generation of self-reliant, food-secure families.
✔ Food at home
✔ Skills for life
✔ Stronger bodies
✔ Hope restored
⭐ Food Security & Home Gardening Program
Our Purpose: Help vulnerable households and schools grow their own nutritious food using low-cost, climate-smart gardening methods improving child nutrition, reducing hunger, and promoting long-term food self-reliance.
⭐ Barefoot-Free Uganda Initiative
Our Purpose: Eliminate bare footedness among rural children through strategic shoe donations and school-based outreach.
Partner: Samaritan’s Feet International
