Teenage pregnancy and HIV aids are the major threats to the girl child in Kenya, especially in Migori county, due to poverty and lack of awareness of the effects of HIV aids.
Urban agriculture can partly solve the problem by enhancing the food and nutritional security of the poor urban population while improving economic status.
Climate Smart Agriculture for Women Empowerment (CSAWE) aims to start Urban Agriculture by 1.4.2023 to provide the women with vegetables and protein sources to supplement their diets while also being a training place for urban agriculture.
Several girls drop out of school since they become mothers at a very tender age, and most of them acquire HIV aids (UNICEF, 2019). In Migori county, few households are practicing urban and peri-urban agriculture and the county government is yet to include urban agriculture for food provisioning in their policies (County Government of Migori, 2018).
Urban and peri-urban agriculture offers the solutions to these problems. When women are involved in agriculture in urban areas where the unemployment rate is assumed to be high, food security issues are likely to be solved (Devi and Buechler, 2009). This type of farming promotes employment opportunities and urban family farming businesses (FAO, 2001; de Zeeuw an Drechsel, 2015; Ogendi et al., 2019). The number of pregnancies resulting from poverty will reduce as the girls’ households will be food secure and economically stable. Besides, more girls will enroll in higher institutions of learning and even choose agriculture- related courses as an option.
CSAWE aims to help the vulnerable women who are already enrolled at Hope for Girls (HOFOGI) with food supplements i.e, vitamins (vegetables) and proteins (poultry), and also to train them to start similar gardens in their backyards. CSAWE will also act as a training place for the community around HOFOGI. CSAWE will work closely with its collaborators namely HOFOGI: provides students and space, Whet That Appetite: Providing the social media platform and the gastronomy network and Greenlife Seedlings Nursery; provides tree seedling and trainings on agroforestry.
Broad Objective:
Training households on Urban and peri- urban Agriculture to alleviate poverty and boost food security and to reduce unintended pregnancies and HIV amongst adolescents and people.
Specific objective:
1. Starting a demonstration field for urban horticulture
2. Starting poultry production
3. Raring Black soldier fly for feed and feed formulation
4. Starting vermicompost for organic manure and insect control
5. Training the community on urban agriculture
6. Promoting agroforestry