No matter how dedicated a person is to a farm or garden, it’s impossible to plant anything without seeds. And in places as remote as Nakivale or Oruchinga, it can be tricky to buy seeds – especially if you’re hoping for a wide variety of options.
So, while visiting our four greenhouses in Uganda, we made sure to ask the farmers not only what seeds they most needed, but what they especially missed from home, too. Many of the workers are refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo, which means they typically make do with the food available in the settlements.
When we asked them what food they missed from their lives back in Congo, faces lit up as spoke of beets, carrots, yams, garlic, ginger and cauliflower. The groups had already been busy growing tomatoes, eggplant, onions, bell peppers, corn, and sorghum, but they missed familiar foods.
We decided to source a huge assortment of seeds — we found all the plants they were already growing plus seeds of the plants they so dearly missed. We had enough funds to meet the seed needs at all four greenhouses!
At the Juru greenhouse, we spoke with one insightful woman working there named Zawadi. As Zawadi explained, these greenhouses help plant seeds of change. “Before I came here,” she said, “I didn’t know how I would be able to earn a living. As of now, I’ve learned how to earn a living and be self-reliant.” And at the greenhouses, they are growing stability and community, too. “As a village and a community,” Zawadi said, “we have learned how we can secure food and fight against hunger.”
