Girls' Project Nairobi Fruit Market, Horticulture project saving lives!

[Griselda]

I was lucky enough to visit Nairobi, Kenya this month, and met with a group running a project a the back of the hawkers' fruit market in City Park. This small garden is providing at least one square meal a day to the girls who work there, plus they learn skills in horticulture, weaving, sewing etc - anything, in fact, to keep them out of harm's way by earning money with their hands. They are aged 13 - 16, and particularly vulnerable, living in the various townships and huge slums which are rapidly expanding in Nairobi - prostitution is just about the only alternative for them and very dangerous through HIV/AIDS, violence and abuse.
The girls are recommended to the project by community leaders, and interviewed before joining the scheme for a year.... none has been turned away so far!
They are composting waste-produce from the market, and then growing their own food, harvesting water from part of the market rooftop which is lashed together with bits of plastic and corrugated iron. They store the water in 4,000 litre tanks, and they use a solar-cooker to make their lunch (no electricity, no running water, no sewerage).
I urge anyone going to Nairobi to visit this project, see their little craft shop, buy the beautiful craftworks they have made from recycled rubbish (baskets, beads, boxes, aprons, etc), give them some money, donate your (English-language) gardening books, find outlets for their work. Read more about them here http://www.girlscentre.com/pages/en/home.php
Thanks!

[Permoderator]

Hi Griselda and a warm welcome to the forum. The project sounds amazing, it's so inspiring to here about these kinds of initiatives spreading light in the dark corners of the world. Nairobi or Nai-robbery as the locals often refer to it is a very tough place to be poor and there are a lot of poor people there.

Thanks so much for posting up the link, I will be passing it on to the webmaster at the main Permaculture Planet site, I'm sure he'd be happy to post it up on the links page.

Best Regards

The Permaculture Planet Team

[Parvati Permaculture]

Namaste Griselda and welcome to the forum, what a really interesting post and link. I've never been to Africa and can only imagine the hardship of those young girls. It's so good to hear that they have this project, a real blessing for them.

Are you working in Kenya?