Ensuring that populations get balanced nourishment is an important component in bringing health and economic development to poor communities. In fact, one of the Millennium Development Goals is to reduce the number of undernourished people to no more than 420 million by 2015.
Poor nutrition leads to malnourishment. Deficiencies in vitamins and iron are associated with higher infant and child mortality. Early life and childhood malnutrition leads to stunting and anaemia, which not only causes low birth-weight in the next generation, but also harms cognitive development.
According to the World Health Organisation, in the year 2000 in Sri Lanka, 18.4 % of children under five were stunted and 22.8 % of children under five were underweight.
Many strategies need to be put in place to help poor communities achieve nutritional health, from national policies to school meals to home gardens. It is here that RRI have helped rural households and schools to establish and maintain vegetable, medicinal and fruit gardens, from which they can supplement their diets with fresh, organically grown vegetables. We work with communities to:
- Asses their needs
- Design their vegetable / fruit / medicinal gardens
- Train them in sustainable farming practices
- Donate plant and seed packs and equipment
- Construct gardening areas
Find out more about our nutritional security programmes:
» Home gardening (CCRP)
» School gardening programme
|
