Kitchen Garden:

Vegetables and fruits occupy an important place in our daily life. They are the only source to increase not only the nutritive values of foods but also its palatability. Considering this as an important aspect of healthy living, a family or an institute should have plans to produce its own requirements in the backyards using the available fresh water as well as the kitchen and bathroom wastewater. This will not only facilitate prevention of stagnation of unused water which will be hazardous to our health through environmental pollution, but can also be useful for successful production of requirement of vegetables and fruits.

 The Kitchen Garden at Keevalur Anganwadi was launched with the efforts of FSL India and Korean volunteers during the Fifth Happy Move Camp. Considering the nutritional food requirements of the children at the Anganwadi Centre, the Kitchen Garden was initiated. It is maintained by the Anganwadi teacher along with the help of an assistant who prepares supplementary nutritional feed for the children. Now the Kitchen Garden started producing vegetables and fruits and 30 children at the Anganwadi Centre are immensely benefitted from this endeavour.

 Prior to the Kitchen Garden came in to being, the place was lying deserted and no one could ever thought of making use of this land. However, after FSL India started working in this village, the staff and volunteers planned to make use of this land for Kitchen Garden so that vegetables and fruits grown in the garden will be consumed by the children. With varieties of fruit bearing and vegetable plants, the surrounding looks green. The benefits are of many folds. Some of them can be enumerated as follows:

Benefits of Kitchen Garden:

• Children get nutritious food with greens and vegetables from the Kitchen Garden which in turn helps improving their nutritional status.
• Consumption of required amount of Green leaves, spinach and other vegetables impact largely to attain and improve age appropriate growth and development of children. Prevalence of vitamin and iron deficiency related diseases among children will be reduced gradually. Children are also given fruits like banana which has the high content of nutritive values.
• Looking at this the community people are being motivated to start their own kitchen garden and unused land is brought under vegetable cultivation.
• With this effort wastewater is being reused which in turn helps in prevention of breeding of mosquitos.

The community people are quite encouraged to see the Kitchen Garden and very happy to witness how their children are fed with organically cultivated vegetables and fruits. With the Kitchen Garden, the Anganwadi Centre is environmentally healthy and child-friendly. Children take time to go around the kitchen garden and are inculcated with value of safe and green environment which is pre-requisite for human existence. Anganwadi Centre is able to save money by growing vegetables and fruits. The expense has been curtailed and self-sufficiency is gradually achieved.

Kitchen Garden:

Promotion of kitchen garden is one of the initiatives of FSL India Happy Move Camp. Kitchen Garden which was initiated about one year ago at Thandalam by FSL India Happy Move Camp has emerged as an important feature of the Anganwadi Centre. With varieties of fruit bearing trees and vegetable plants all around, the garden looks unique. All these useful plants and vegetation have certainly doubled the beauty of the Anganwadi Centre. It is maintained well by the Anganwadi Teacher and the maid who prepares supplementary feed for the children. The maid regularly waters the garden twice a day which helps trees and vegetation grow faster. Here are some of the benefits of Kitchen Garden:

• Children are regularly fed with nutritious food with greens and vegetables from the garden. No doubt this will make far-reaching contribution for improving the nutritional status of children.
• Green leaves, spinach and other vegetables are being used for preparing vegetable dish which is served to the children every day along with the rice. Intake of adequate quantity of vegetables would improve the health status and balanced growth of children. Vitamin and iron deficiency related diseases among the children will be reduced considerably.
• Once the fruit bearing trees starts bearing fruits, children will have adequate fruits seasonally in the Anganwadi Centre which will ensure healthy living.
• Besides making vegetable dish from the beans, okra, chilly etc. seeds are also preserved for vegetable cultivation.
• Water being the scarce resource, wastewater from the kitchen is recycled and reused. Through a small drainage, the waste water is being drained out and used for irrigation of plants and trees in the kitchen garden. This further prevented stagnation and water-log and breeding of mosquitoes. This is a good initiative to prevent vector-borne diseases in the community.
• This initiative generated interest among the parents who are motivated to initiate kitchen garden and backyard cultivation.

Feedback from the beneficiary Community:

1. Fifty-two year old one Ms. Gunasundary says the Kitchen Garden is very useful for the Anganwadi Center. Earlier Anganwadi Center used to buy vegetables from the shop. Whereas now vegetables are grown in the kitchen Garden. This has ensured a greater degree of self-sufficiency. Vegetable cultivation for domestic consumption is indeed a laudable effort.

2. Ms. Vijaya from the community opines that such kind of initiative also will have long term impact on pollution control measures. Anganwadi Centre is located near the road and due to vehicular emission there has been air pollution. Such initiatives would not only ensure disease prevention and healthy living but also promote ecology and prevent environment degradation. Kitchen Garden at the Anganwadi Centre promoted by FSL-India Happy Move Camp will serve as the model for the village community to replicate.