Bisni Bai Merawi is a tribal woman lives with her family in Pandarpaani village in Kabeerdham district. One of the Partner Raipur Diocesan Social Welfare Society (RDSWS) is implementing UTTHAN program in Bisin Bai’s village to ensure Food and Nutrition Security of Vulnerable Adivasi Communities.

Influenced by the changes in her village, out of curiosity Bisni Bai also started joining meetings and workshop organized by RDSWS. One of the trainings was an eye-opening for her, which explained the importance of having a kitchen garden in our backyard. Bisni Bai says, “It seemed to me very interesting the way UTTHAN team explained to us the importance of kitchen garden and its practical process of doing it.” Along with orientation, the participants have also distributed vegetable seeds.

Being motivated from the workshop, Bisni Bai started getting engaged in kitchen gardening in her backyard. Though Bisni Bai has a field wherein they normally cultivate paddy or wheat, this was the first experience for her doing kitchen garden in her backyard, hence she was very excited. She says, ‘what the most she liked in the training was knowing that vegetables cultivated in kitchen garden organically are nutritional and can address the issue of malnutrition, this developed interest in me to start a kitchen garden in my backyard.’

Realizing that this effort of her will provide better nutrition to her family members through kitchen gardening. She prepared kitchen garden and grew bottle gourd, bitter gourd, pumpkin, ladyfinger and ridge gourd etc. In the process, she was constantly connected with UTTHAN team and getting timely guidance for crops to yield well.

After a few months, Bisni Bai was happy to see her efforts paying off, vegetables grown in the garden started bearing fruits. She began plucking those vegetables for consuming at home. Moreover, if these vegetables were in access, she would share it with neighbours. Some of the time, she sold vegetables in the local market. Bisni Bai says, ‘In past 2 months, I have sold vegetables in the local market costing around INR 1900/ and this earned me some pocket money.’

This experience of developing a kitchen garden, Bisni Bai is sharing with other women in the village. She helped some of her own tribal women to set up a kitchen garden in their backyards. Moreover, she is also speaking during meetings and motivating other women to take up kitchen gardening, which will at least give them fresh and nutritious vegetable and in return community together can fight against malnutrition and combat it.

Today, because of her initiative and motivation, many people have started developing kitchen gardens at home and take benefit from it.