THE TRAINING ON AGROECOLOGY ENHANCED MY SKILLS ON VEGETABLE GARDENING

My name is David Aungo Edward Wani, I am a 27-year-old refugee from South Sudan who has lived in Uganda at Imvepi Refugee Settlement for 7 years. 

In 2017, a civil war started in South Sudan, and this forced I and my family to flee to Uganda for safety because I lost some of my relatives during the war. Upon arrival in Uganda, we were welcomed by Office of the Prime Minister of Uganda, hosted at the reception center for a night and thereafter integrated into the settlement. 

After being integrated into the settlement, I got enrolled on Food ratios by World Food Programme which provided us with what to eat in the meantime. I was also allocated a piece of land at 50*50meters where I constructed my shelter and used the remaining portion for backyard garden but still wasn’t sufficient especially for food production.

Last year in 2023, I experienced food crisis at my household level due to reduction in food ratios distributed by World food Programme, and this worsened the situation at home because we didn’t have enough food to eat nor land to produce food and this forced my family into surviving on a single meal a day and this made me regret moving to Uganda. 

In Febuary 2024, I received a call from my community mobiliser who said ActionAid intend to support small holder farmers who are refugees and host to establish an agroecological center which is a learning and climate action center. I was happy because I got chosen to be part of the 35 farmers selected for this community transformation.

In April 2024, ActionAid trained us on agroecology and established an agroecological center where I gained knowledge on 6 enterprises which were vegetable gardening, water harvesting, Apiary, tree growing, livestock thus in a period of 3 weeks after the training, I quickly replicated the practice of vegetable gardening in my backyard which has picked up.

This month of June, I am at ease practicing vegetable gardening, my household nutrition will improve soon, and the surplus shall be sold to improve my household incomes. I am happy to be practicing agroecology not only for household incomes but also as a climate action. 

While in my community, I am encouraging my neighbors to practice agroecology and I have committed myself to support my friends and neighbors in putting up vegetable gardens. 
Thank you to ActionAid for providing me with this knowledge on sustainable farm practices and I will continue to practice agroecology for climate action not withholding other benefits.