From lean season to lavish greens
Navigating the harsh realities of the lean season in South Sudan, Tabitha found a long-term, sustainable solutions through Tearfund’s kitchen garden initiative.
Working in a quaint market in South Sudan, life has not been easy for Tabitha* and her three children.
For 7 years she worked, trying to make enough to sustain her family on her own. But with each passing year, it became more and more difficult to support her children on that income. So they travelled closer to the capital, Aweil, in search of a greater livelihood: “It was proving difficult, and I wasn’t making any money from [the market]. So I decided to go back home and start cultivating there.”
However, facing the desolate realities of the lean season, food was scarce for Tabitha and her family for the four to five arduous months annually. “By this time in April, all the crops we would have gotten from the garden are already gone,” she laments, reflecting on the struggle to make the little food they had last. Consequently, sickness often followed the hunger, leaving stomach illnesses to pervade her household. “It reduces the productivity in the family when people are not able to work,” she explains, describing the crippling effect of malnutrition on her family’s well-being, physically, emotionally, and financially. With little income, Tabitha could not afford clothing or pay the school fees for her children; she felt as if she were stuck with no way out.
To address the comprehensive effects of poverty, Tearfund introduced Church and Community Transformation (CCT) training to Tabitha’s local church. CCT teaches churches how they can utilize and mobilize the resources they have to support their community beyond their church walls. It addresses poverty with long-term, sustainable solutions.
Seeing how drought was leaving countless families empty-handed year after year during the lengthening lean seasons, Tearfund introduced kitchen gardens as an effort to transition people from food relief to a long-term solution to hunger. Kitchen gardens are small plots of land where people can plant healthier, more nutritious crops, especially in dry and barren places. By using leftover kitchen wastewater to hydrate these gardens, they are both sustainable and easy to manage. For families like Tabitha’s, these gardens have become a vital source of fresh fruits and vegetables, providing not only nutrition but also a means to generate income.
With guidance from Tearfund facilitators and support from the local church, Tabitha began cultivating her own kitchen garden. She now grows kale, okra, cilantro, and pumpkins — crops that are well-suited to the environment and that have quickly become a lifeline for her family. Thanks to this new method of farming, Tabitha can produce enough to sell in the market! She explains that with these gardens, “I could get about 500, or even 5,000 [South Sudanese] pounds. And quickly!”
Tearfund’s kitchen garden initiative, in collaboration with Tearfund Netherlands and local governments, is a shift from short-term food relief to long-term, sustainable solutions. Plans are already in motion to expand this initiative by introducing solar water pumps and diversifying the crops that families like Tabitha’s can grow.
Thanks to generous donors like you, these efforts, supported by the local church, are empowering people like Tabitha to take control of their futures and lift themselves out of poverty.
*Pseudonym
