Changed Lives: Doliya
"Now that I can prepare nutritious food from the vegetables in my garden, my children go to school happy and come back strong, not tired."
Doliya lives with her husband Dickson, their five children, and her father-in-law in a small grass-roofed house in Kumchenga village, 30km from Malawi's capital, Lilongwe.
Like many women in her village, Doliya is a subsistence farmer, relying on her fields to feed her family and earn a small income.
“My husband is the breadwinner, but he broke his leg and we didn’t have any other ways to generate income, so we were relying on farming alone,” says Doliya.
“But Doliya was pregnant,” continues Dickson. “So we had to take our sixteen-year-old out of school to support the family. We were desperate to have another way of making money, but I couldn’t walk.”
It was at this time that Doliya was selected to participate in an Egmont supported project by Agri-Impact. She joined 99 other women from vulnerable and HIV-affected farming households in a project to increase their food security, nutrition and boost their incomes.
The project included training in backyard gardening to supplement their fields; cultivating a more diverse range of fruit, vegetables and legumes; preserving harvested food and cooking well-balanced meals, good for both young children’s development and ARV uptake for HIV+ family members.
Doliya took all she learned from the training and created a backyard garden next to their house, filled with fruit and vegetables.
“Through the project and the training, I learned how to make a productive garden and now we have access to nutritious foods and additional income through sales from the garden,” she says.
“It is easy for Doliya to facilitate sales from the garden,” adds Dickson “We have sold quite a lot of tomatoes, Chinese cabbage, pumpkin leaves and potatoes. We sell to our neighbours, relatives and other community members.”
“The income has supported us to buy other foods that we cannot grow, like salt and cooking oil,” continues Doliya. “When our situation stabilises, our 16-year-old will start back at school. Next term we hope.”
The project training also enabled Doliya to use her new backyard garden to support her family’s health and nutrition:
“Before the project, I didn’t see the value of some of the crops we are growing but I learned that I need to grow certain crops to make a range of food for my children. The cooking sessions were my favourite, as cooking is close to my heart. Now that I can prepare nutritious food from the vegetables in my garden, my children go to school happy and come back strong, not tired. Also, because of the food that I am eating, I am able to provide milk for my baby boy which helps him to be healthy.”
Doliya and Dickson are now thinking about the future.