My name is Edith Gitau-Kenana, commonly known as Rotarian Edith (I am a volunteer with Rotary International) or Mwalimu (Teacher). I grew up on the outskirts of Nairobi surrounded by coffee plantations and green lush fields of food crops. Our meals were rich and nutritious from freshly picked farm produce. I always assumed that is how every plate looks like across the world.
This assumption would be erased and replaced when I graduated from the University of Nairobi with a Bachelor’s of Education Degree and joined Equity Bank as a financial literacy trainer. The bank exposed me to a totally different world as I found myself working in the arid regions of Kenya. The land suddenly changed from lush green plantations to dry lands with scattered shrubs across the vast dry brown lands.
The biggest shocker was understanding how the people there survive. No sign of green vegetables. No sign of fruit trees. No sign of anything green! I believe in eating from a plate full of color from fresh fruits and vegetables. The brown land threw my brain to work. What resources are available and how can we utilize them?
The community had a lot of animal manure from their goats. There was very little water available but this could be leveraged. We got to work! I sourced for a few vertical gardens and drip lines. We gathered manure and mixed it with the murram soil. We put ash in a bucket to help us purify the kitchen waste water for later use to irrigate our garden. Then planted vegetables.
Over the months the gardens grew and that is how Aitopiu Africa was born and has grown to have a model regenerative farm with an assortment of fruits and vegetables. We are reviving our lands one meter at a time through regenerative agriculture, leveraging on the scarce resources we have. Our goal is to have a nutritious garden in every school within our county and in every home. We shall achieve this by training the community at our model farm and helping the community to set up gardens by providing seedlings and access to water.
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