There are not few challenges in starting up a project without capital or sponsors, but if one has the will anything can be possible. Mweiga is a small village, north of Nyeri town in central Kenya and most of the inhabitants here live of small-scale farming. The Red Cross also has a small piece of land here. The field is a wonderful sight and it is impressing to see the volunteer spirit and the work effort of the members. The project has given opportunities both for the hiv-infected people and given the group funds to develop it further.

Sale and donations

"Everything we have done on the small piece of land that we got has been based on volunteer work. Without the small donations that we got from our members we wouldn’t be able to do much", says Jane Chokwe, chairman of Mweiga Red Cross sub-branch.

The Red Cross-group has sold some of their products on the local market. They have so far made about 250kr which will help keep the project running and buy more fertilizer and seeds. It has not been easy selling the products on the market since they are common vegetables and the demand is not high. Still that is not the only important thing. The group has donated a lot of their products to hiv and aids-infected people. Red Cross in Mweiga has contact with a group of 40 infected people that can pick or receive vegetables for their own consumption for free.

"These vegetables are very nutritious and will help strengthen the immune-system, which is very important for the infected. We also have a plan to grow more of these vegetables, like pumpkins", says Chokwe.

Challenges in the beginning

The idea to start an income generating activity in Mweiga came in 2003, and the year after the group received a piece of land for free from two of their members. The land was supposed to be used as a tree-planting area, and the volunteers collected money and bought the seeds for planting. Unfortunately many of them dried up because of poor maintenance.

"One of the biggest challenges we had was to maintain the plants and we hired someone to do this for us. This person turned out to be unreliable and didn’t do the necessary work so we had to do the work ourselves", says Jane Chokwe.

The tree-planting area was moved in 2006 to a school nearby and the old land was transformed into a field for growing vegetables. The seeds are now growing well and will be sold after the rainy season in April. The number of seeds is between 15-20,000 and has been planted and taken care of by volunteers and students at the school.

The youth as a workforce

The group really appreciates the land that has been given to them to start with. They don’t have the funds to hire someone to take care of the land which resulted in the volunteers taking charge of the maintenance like weeding, fertilizing, watering, planting and harvesting. A lot of time has been spent to make the garden the way it is and keep it. Being a volunteer also includes using your spare-time and many of the volunteers have because of that, been youth.

Jeff Muta, chairman in Mweiga Red Cross youth is one of the volunteers who has gathered the youth to maintenance work on the field.

"The youth have been helpful and very willing to come together to make the project a success. Its part of our income generating activities and has also been of great help to the hiv-infected in our community. We are really hoping that we will be able to enlarge the project further," says Jeff Muta.

The youth have themselves taken the responsibility work on the land when they have time. Weeding and fertilizing is important to keep the earth fertile and make the vegetables grow. With their own tools the youth show a great initiative to dig on the land to assist the Red Cross community.

Future plans

Plans of extending the project is already going on. The Red Cross group has already been given a new piece of land where they would like to grow other sorts of vegetables.

"We would like to have a specific piece of land for sale on the market to be able to continue giving nutritious vegetables to the hiv-infected", says Jane Chokwe.

And with the raising number of infected people in Kenya everyday is it certain that the garden in Mweiga will be useful and important to these people in the future as well.