Using nature to nurture livelihoods

A series of hands-on training workshops were conducted as part of the project with an impressive total attendance of 99 participants, comprising of farmers and local political leaders, councilors, and women and youth groups. The keen interest shown by the community in vegetable growing indicated their willingness to seek alternative livelihood solutions and find more sustainable ways to supplement their incomes. The training taught them how to set up different types of container gardens, using readily available recyclable materials like sacks, buckets, bottles, basins, and how to set up and care for the community vegetable nurseries. They were also taught steps and tips for proper fruit tree planting and care, and how to make use of organic waste for compost. Trainees walked away with a better understanding of the importance of trees and woodlots in homes and surroundings, and their ability to provide shade, stabilise soil and supplement food stores or generate income when they begin to grow fruit. The THRIVE app, developed by ICLEI Africa for UNA, was used extensively throughout the training process – in particular to build capacity on the topics Establishment of tree nurseries, Sustainable woodlot & plantation management and How to sustainably manage and protect wetlands.

The main objectives of the hands-on training workshops were to teach vulnerable households about alternative green solutions to food insecurity and income supplementation, and to provide inputs and equipment to these communities to incentivise them to give these nature-based solutions a try, to improve their chances of benefitting from them. Women and youth groups adjacent to the Namiiro wetland were trained to sustainably utilise their surrounding environment to solve their immediate food insecurity, and protect it for the future. Inputs were provided to assist them in the short to medium term, with vegetable growing in containers, as well as wider long-term benefits to the wetland that could result from fruit tree growing, such as reducing run-off from the top soil, and increasing shade. This capacity building project presented a timely opportunity for many community members who were dependent on small-scale businesses that had collapsed due to COVID-19 and rising water levels, and were under pressure to meet food, rent, water, energy and other basic costs. It began the gradual work of rebuilding livelihoods devastated by floods and the ongoing pandemic, as well as better protecting the future of the wetland itself as pressures from unsustainable farming practises, brick-making that relies on digging up the wetland, and unsustainable fishing practises would be reduced.