With our Movement of Life work in Zimbabwe beginning to gain widespread attention, the H-Metro newspaper, the country’s leading tabloid, recently published an article about our achievements. Featuring Bruce Kanengoni, our Movement of Life Zimbabwe coordinator, the article describes how the participants in our fruit and vegetable gardening project in the Warren Park area of Harare now include four schools and over 150 families. Bruce and his own family have become passionate advocates of the project. Like everyone else taking part, after setting up their garden they soon experienced the life-changing benefits.
The produce grown in the garden has made an enormous improvement to the Kanengoni family’s diet. With vegetables including carrots, eggplants, onions, garlic, green peppers, butternut squash, pumpkins, beetroot, and tomatoes, as well as mango, lemon, and avocado trees, the garden provides them with a rich source of essential micronutrients. As a result, Bruce says that he and his wife, Sibongile, no longer need to buy vegetables from the local shop. In future, as their harvests increase, they even plan to sell their surplus produce to supplement the family income.
A brighter future
The family say the garden hasn’t just benefited them nutritionally. It has also become an important source of daily exercise. As any experienced gardener will testify, regular digging, carrying, weeding, and planting helps improve your physical fitness. Studies clearly show that combining a micronutrient-rich diet with regular exercise significantly reduces the risk of developing cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes, and other chronic diseases.
Bruce also says that the garden has instilled a new sense of self-belief and confidence in the family. Poverty and malnutrition are rife in Zimbabwe, with many families surviving on just one meal a day. In schoolchildren, malnutrition is a common cause of absenteeism from class and poor academic performance. With the benefit of a micronutrient-rich diet, however, Bruce’s son Spencer, aged 11, and daughter Tracey, aged 7, can both now look forward to a much brighter future.
Transforming the African continent
Bruce tells us he has been helped enormously by our range of educational books, particularly the Organic Gardening book. From reading these books, he has learned how to create and look after a garden, what to plant and when, how to deal with garden pests and prevent them destroying his crops, and which foods are the best sources of micronutrients. Armed with this knowledge he has been able to help many other members of his community set up their own gardens.
As with the other inspiring examples we have shared over the past couple of years, Bruce’s story provides compelling evidence that our Movement of Life project in Zimbabwe is changing lives. Setting up water boreholes, distributing gardening tools, and teaching people about nutrition and Cellular Medicine has the potential to dramatically transform the African continent, not just from the perspective of health but also economically. Governments, along with the large international aid agencies and charities, need to be brought to understand this.
If you would like to help support our life-changing work in Zimbabwe, any donation you can make, no matter how small, will be very greatly appreciated.
