This farm-to-bedside garden feeds hospital patients in Rwanda! (Year: 2017)

Growing Health is Growing Well

Rwandan government hospitals are not able to provide meals for hospitalized patients. Many hospitalized patients cannot afford food in addition to medicines and hospital expenses, and many thus experience long periods of food insecurity during hospitalization. This not only impairs their ability to recover and further prolongs hospitalization, but also can have negative physical and developmental impacts that ripple out through their lifetimes.

Dr. Emily Esmaili, General Pediatrician, Global Health Fellow, Duke University, used funding from ICATCH to bring together a team in Huye, Rwanda to start Growing Health, Inc. (GH) or Kuzamura Ubuzima ,an initiative that transformed unused land near Centre Hospitalier Universitaire du Butare (CHUB) into a productive garden that now provides produce for meals served to hospitalized patients.

Under the guidance of Ms. Laurette Mushimiyimana, who is now the GH President and Program Coordinator in Huye, the team has expanded to include 23 farmworkers, 3 cooks, an agronomist, 5 managers, coordinators and educators, and even a monkey “watchman.”

Last year alone, they harvested 19,051 kg of produce (beans, sweet potatoes, kale, sorghum, bananas, avocados, passion fruit and more!). An irrigation system was installed to increase productivity this year.

In addition, they recently started an outreach program in 3 nearby villages, targeting 75 families that were former beneficiaries of our program. They visit these villages periodically, delivering fuel-efficient stoves and follow-up trainings on nutrition, permagardening, and preventive health. They hope to continue to expand, ultimately providing healthy, sustainable food to all patients in need at Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Butare (CHUB) in Rwanda.

Growing Health is indeed growing well!