Fighting malnutrition in India with Kitchen Gardens

Two-year-old Priya was diagnosed with malnourishment when she was just a year old.

Following her diagnosis, World Vision India’s health volunteers met her parents and found a lack of nutritious food was the reason for Priya’s malnourishment.    

When  Priya  was 19 months old, she weighed just 6.5kg.

Priya lives in a village where families must walk more than four kilometres to buy even basic things like vegetables. Priya’s mother shared with our health volunteers that because both she and her husband were working as daily wage labourers, they did not have time to walk such long distances to buy vegetables every day. 

“The money we earn daily will be fully spent in buying basic daily things, so we don’t have extra money to buy vegetables to feed our child,” her mother says .

“Often I had to borrow vegetables and groceries from our neighbours. Sometimes I used to be embarrassed to do that.”

As part of our Kitchen Garden initiative, Priya’s parents received 10 varieties of seasonal plant seeds to sow on land behind their house. They received training to prepare the land, sow seeds, learn smart maintenance of plants, and ways to use organic fertilisers to help them grow.  

After a few weeks, beautiful flowers and tiny vegetables started to grow. Finally, Priya started to eat the healthy and organic vegetables plucked from her garden every day.   

“I felt very proud when I started to give vegetables to my neighbours whenever they needed. Now I have given back more vegetables to all my neighbours from whom I had previously borrowed,” her mother says smiling.  

Now Priya is a healthy weight. She’s more active, playing, engaging and eating well.    

“We were very happy to see flowers, vegetables and fruits in our garden. Every day Priya goes to the garden to see new flowers and vegetables,” her mother says.  

“I am deeply encouraged to see how Priya has changed. She was thin and lean, now she is healthy. The Kitchen Garden programme brings real changes in the children’s health,” says Shajan, a World Vision India staff member.

"Semina Agro Pvt. Ltd." is the technical partner of World Vision India for the Kitchen Garden programme.