Beneficiaries: 2,800 caregivers and their families
Completion date: May 2025
Country: Kenya
Executive summary
Food insecurity is defined as a lack of access to secure, adequate and nutritious foods that fulfill dietary needs and preferences. In Kenya, 10 per cent of the population faced acute food insecurity in 2023, most seriously affecting women of childbearing age and children under the age of 5. Children who experience prolonged food insecurity are likely to suffer from malnutrition and its related consequences such as stunting, weakened immune systems and physical and cognitive developmental delays.
In Kenya, 71 per cent of the population live in rural households and rely on rainfed agriculture as their primary source of income. During periods of little rainfall, caregivers experience poor agricultural yield, impacting their ability to provide food for their families. Without access to regular, nutritious meals, children’s physical, emotional, cognitive and spiritual development are at risk. Hungry children struggle to listen in class, participate in their local Compassion centre program days and lack the energy needed to get through the day.
Compassion Canada is launching its first-ever 18-month pilot project, the Food Resliency Tripartite Project. The FRTP is a long-term scalable solution to the food scarcity and malnutrition crisis, working in partnership with Compassion Canada and Thrive for Good. Thrive for Good specializes in training vulnerable communities to grow high-nutrient, disease-fighting foods and herbs all year round with scarce rainfall, utilizing small land plots called Life Gardens, grown by community members.
The FRTP pilot project will be implemented in 4 regions, 28 locations, and with 28 Compassion church partners. Through a series of hands-on training workshops, mentoring and support, ‘Life Garden Champions’ (LGCs) will learn Thrive for Good’s methodology, then teach life garden caregivers to grow a supply of nutritious, accessible food for their families. This will create a resilient food system that can withstand and recover from disruptions in a way that ensures a sustainable long- term solution for food insecurity.
Our vision is that the success of this project will provide a template model to scale up and exponentially launch into many more Compassion countries, rapidly changing food insecurity into food resilency for thousands of Compassion communities.
Summary
Background
Compassion Kenya has an existing food security and livelihoods strategy and has partnered with a variety of government and non-government organizations in the past to address food insecurity. However, the initiatives have shown mixed results. As food insecurity continues to be a longstanding challenge in many Kenyan communities, Compassion Kenya has felt the need to continuously develop more effective strategies to create long-term solutions that will provide caregivers with the tools needed to not only survive, but to thrive with food resiliency. This tripartite project aims to make a significant impact towards the ultimate goal of increased health and food resilience.
The need
Malnutrition disrupts children’s intellectual and social development. It leaves them with fewer options for earning money as adults and can rob them of a future. As food insecurity rises, children are at increased risk of exploitation and child labour, as families are forced to make despairing decisions to survive. With your generous support, Compassion will partner with Thrive For Good to provide food resiliency training to 2,800 caregivers from 28 Compassion centres in Vihiga, Embu, Machakos and Taita Taveta, Kenya.
The team will select 28 “life garden champions” (LGCs) to attend a one-month, in-person intensive seminar to receive training at Thrive for Good’s Institute in Kitale, Kenya. These 28 newly certified Life Garden Champions, supported by their Thrive for Good mentor, will return to their communities to conduct a series of five-day workshops for the purpose of training 100 life garden caregivers – 20 at one time – on how to implement Thrive for Good’s life gardens.
A total of 2,800 Life Garden caregivers – 100 per location – will receive training from their local Life Garden Champion on the methodologies and benefits of growing life gardens. Life Garden caregivers will learn how to grow nutrient-dense foods that will thrive in a low rainfall environment. They will then develop home gardens using restorative land management practices that will increase soil resiliency and reduce greenhouse gasses. Caregivers will implement what they’ve learned in their own gardens over a 12-month growing period. They will also learn how to work collectively with others in their communities and will be encouraged to share what they’ve learned with their neighbours. LGCs will collect both health and garden data for each life garden household monthly.
The ultimate goal of impacting over 11,200 life garden household members, our aim is to enhance their health, increase food resilience, and equip them to cultivate sustainable life gardens for years to come.
What your gift will do
Your gift will equip 2,800 caregivers and their families to move beyond subsistence farming to nutritious long-term sustainable farming, including:
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Training program delivery and support
- Travel for life garden champions (LGCs) to in-person training seminars
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Project implementation
- Thrive for Good mentoring, support, plus garden and personal health data reporting
- LGC monthly reporting
- Monthly compensation for 28 LGCs
- Smart phones for reporting
- Data plans
- Keyhole gardens: tools, seeds and supplies
- Demonstration gardens: tools, seeds and supplies
Logistics
- Local contribution: Compassion Kenya will provide their local Project Lead.
- Handling of funds: Compassion Kenya, Thrive for Good and Compassion Canada have agreed on the approach for budget management and a fund disbursement guideline schedule. Compassion Canada will ensure this project stays within budget.
- Monitoring and follow-up: Compassion Kenya and Thrive for Good will work in collaboration with Compassion Canada’s Project Manager to monitor the progress of this intervention. The impact and outcomes of the project will follow a detailed evidence-based project management approach. LGCs will provide ongoing support for caregivers and will monitor their gardening efforts each month to ensure they are implementing what they’ve learned.