Kenya

CYL-K and friends building a Growing Pillar (Kisumu, Kenya)
Kenya inspired both our name and our vertical growing pillars, and our flagship community pillars are located here. We started a sister community-based organization (CBO) in Kenya consisting of Kenyans from across the country. We are collaborating with this team to set a precedent of local involvement for our future projects around the world. This team has planned and implemented a seminar that brought together leaders of community based organizations to teach them about our growing methods.

Real Impact Demonstration Garden

Thika, Kenya
Real Impact (RI) is a Kenyan NGO that helps communities understand the principles of good nutrition, and trains institutions and domestic gardeners on how to design and manage Nutrition Gardens. They grow enough of the right vegetables to meet the requirements of a balanced diet in a sustainable way, without having to resort to food aid and hand-outs of vitamin A and iron tablets. They are building a network of over 40 Nutrition Gardens in schools, hospitals, women’s groups, youth groups, self-help groups, orphanages and prisons in the Thika region.

After CYL Kenya visited the demonstration garden, RI provided the team with training on vermi-composting and hundreds of worms and castings for the seminar CYL conducted in February of 2012.

CYL-K Flagship garden at Kabiro Primary School
In addition, after seeing CYL’s Growing Pillars, RI built one at the demonstration site to further advance research and development of the technology.

Kabiro Primary School Garden

Kawangware, Nairobi

Housed at the Kabiro Primary School in Kawangware, our flagship Kenyan garden includes a total of seven growing pillars (as well as a composting unit) and provides an educational tool for the students to learn about composting and agriculture. The garden is tended by the Kawangware Urumwe Youth Group (KUYG) and the Parents of Children with Special Needs Association, who collect produce from the garden for their personal use and to sell for financial benefit. After we successfully piloted our gardening program by developing five garden pillars, the Kenyan Ministry of Agriculture generously provided funding for two more, resulting in a total of seven garden pillars at Kabiro.



Community Partners

Kabiro Primary School hosted our first training seminar, which many of our community partners attended; they are also providing the land for our flagship Nairobi gardens

Kawangware Urumwe Youth Group has been at the Vanguard of the CYL vision, implementing our first pillars in Nairobi, which were partially funded by the Ministry of Agriculture.

Parents of Children with Special Needs Association , along with the Urumwe Youth Group, tends to our Kawangware garden and collects produce from the pillars.


Kisumu

We work with the Lakers Art and Conservation Group in Kisumu, Kenya, where a small-scale garden project is helping to raise awareness of how sustainable agriculture can help mitigate local environmental issues. The garden is helping the Lakers support themselves as well as broadening the demographic they can serve. One member of the group has also started his own personal garden.




Community Partners

Lakers Conservation and Art Group representatives traveled close to 500 miles round trip to attend our first training seminar and have now initiated a small-scale garden in Kisumu.


Additional Kenyan Partners

Multi-Vision Group and Youth Safety Awareness Initiative (Eldoret)

Representatives of these organizations attended our first training seminar:

Garden of Eden, Kenya (Kibera)

This organization will be our primary partner in Kibera when we have the funding to start a garden there!

Members of Kenya Lakers C & A Group with their gardening supplies