How Does Your Garden Grow?

When people get accustomed to a particular lifestyle, they develop attitudes that are near impossible to change.

Damayanthi Godamulla of the Kegalle-based NGO called Community Development Centre, wanted to train the people of this tsunami-affected seaside village a new and worthwhile pastime: home gardening. The odds were overwhelming odds: Her assistant, Rasika Hewawitharana, who works with the beneficiaries, says it was an immense challenge to change attitudes among the affected people because they were fisher-folk. They were unfamiliar with the intricacies of home gardening. “Their lives were focussed on the sea,” he says, “They didn’t know anything except fishing.”

The settlement being located close to the sea, the ground soil contained too much salinity and was unsuitable for cultivation. But the NGO, undaunted by the challenge, arranged for suitable soil to be transported from three or four kilometres away. Each lorry load (around 1,000 Kgs) costs upto Rs 20,000 (US$ 196).

The next constraint was that of limited land space; there was just not enough land available in their sparse gardens. But Hewawitharana was determined to overcome this handicap too. So, in conjunction with the local community, he set about increasing the cultivable area. Did they buy or rent more land? No, nothing so mundane; besides, they couldn’t afford that luxury... Inspired by a system of cultivation that is widely prevalent in Nepal, they set about increasing cultivable surface area. Think innovative… The surface area of a mountain is greater than the base on which it stands. So, they created little hillocks in their gardens to increase land available for cultivation. These home gardens are now a profusion of mukunuwena, spinach, radish, kankum, leafy vegetables and ginger.

Not content with resting on its laurels, the NGO has planned a second phase, in which more soil will be bought in. To enhance yield, organic fertiliser will be introduced and a compost unit will be installed in every home garden. As one family told us, “We are confident that what we plant here is pure and clean. We eat chemical-free vegetables. Besides, it increases our livelihood and supplements our income from fishing.”

These families have been accustomed to cooking their meals over wood fires in makeshift sheds. SSGF has funded constructing and equipping 100 indoor kitchens, complete with furniture, racks, pots and pans. Sixty such kitchens are already in progress and, when completed, each would have cost Rs 15,000 to 20,000 (US$ 147 to 196).

The people of this community are happy with the outcome. The smiling faces that one sees are evidence enough.