A month ago, the Njia Panda Kisele women’s group approached the founder of the African Reflections, Maria Pool, for support in starting a vegetable farm. This was after they heard that African Reflections had supported farms at Kimanzichana and Mwalusembe also in Mkuranga, where the women were supplied with seeds and buckets of irrigation kits; these kits are simple buckets connected to pipes with holes, which allow the water to flow through them and irrigate the vegetables. It is a simple technique which uses gravity but has done wonders for these women.

African Reflections supported the women of Njia Panda Kisele by first building a water-well for them, as the bucket kits would not be useful in the area where there was no water. They were then supplied with the kits and seeds, after which the women got to work immediately.

A month later the Chinese cabbage was ready for harvest. It was indeed a beautiful day for the African Reflections group and the women of Kisele for they harvested about 80kg of cabbage in one day!

One of the women from the group, Amina Twalib said “Before this joint effort we each had our individual farms which did not provide us with much, we would farm for a short while then spend the rest of the day making mats”. She went on to say “now we know that there is unity and strength by coming together, we can produce a lot more and eventually increase our income”.

The founder of the African Reflections, Maryvonne Pool and the Chairperson of the African Reflections Tanzania, Dr Mwele Malecela, joined the women in harvesting the cabbage. Ms Pool said she was overwhelmed with emotion; the fact that with very simple tools and a lot of determination these women were able to do so much!

African Reflections is now in the process of marketing these vegetables for the women so that they do not have to sell through the middlemen. The chairperson of the Kisele Women’s group said that they had named their group “Matokeo”, the Swahili word for ‘outcome’ or ‘results’. This is truly a result-oriented group. Ms Pool stressed that she is interested in working with institutions that give out loans for women to help support such initiatives.

The women’s group requested the African Reflections Foundation to support them in starting other income generating activities e.g. Batik making, beadwork and other crafts that they could do in between the farming activities. The African Reflections Foundation has also promised to build a day care center so that women have a safe place to leave their children when they are out in the field working. Most of the women had children on their backs or seated under tree shades as they worked.

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