When we started feeding children vegetables and saw changes, that myth was broken.
In the Kyaka II Refugee Settlement of Uganda, where nearly four in ten children bear the physical mark of chronic hunger, families are turning small patches of earth into instruments of survival. Mothers who once misread the signs of malnutrition — or attributed them to forces beyond medicine — are now cultivating vegetables, forming care collectives, and watching their children recover. It is a story as old as human settlement itself: when institutions falter, communities plant seeds.
- Nearly 38% of children screened in Kyaka II show stunted growth, and hundreds more face acute malnutrition in a settlement where food assistance has been repeatedly cut by funding shortfalls.
- A two-year-old's silent deterioration — browning hair, swollen belly, wasting limbs — went unrecognized by his own mother until a neighbor intervened, exposing how invisible malnutrition can be even to those living inside it.
- A dangerous myth that malnutrition was caused by witchcraft spread through the community, delaying care for children whose lives depended on timely treatment.
- Ten mothers formed the Tujitengemee Care Group, growing nutrient-dense vegetables on small plots, training neighbors, monitoring children, and running a savings scheme — turning personal crisis into collective infrastructure.
- As vegetable gardens produced visibly healthier children, the witchcraft myth collapsed under the weight of evidence, and the model is now being replicated across the settlement.
- Uganda's 1.8 million refugees remain caught between a strained humanitarian system and their own ingenuity — the question now is whether this grassroots proof of concept can be scaled before more children are lost to a preventable crisis.
In Uganda's Kyaka II Refugee Settlement, families are planting small kitchen gardens around their homes — and in doing so, quietly reversing one of the settlement's most stubborn crises: the malnutrition of young children.
Mwamimu Hakiza, a 24-year-old from the Democratic Republic of Congo, did not recognize the warning signs as her two-year-old son's body began to fail him. It took a neighbor, Bijoux Yowale, to see what Hakiza could not and insist she seek medical help. Health workers confirmed severe malnutrition and offered a simple directive alongside treatment: grow vegetables and feed them to your child. She did. Her son recovered.
Yowale turned that experience into something larger. She gathered nine other mothers and founded the Tujitengemee Care Group, a collective that teaches families across the settlement how to cultivate dodo, cabbage, sukuma wiki, carrots, and onions on whatever land they can find. The group also monitors children for signs of malnutrition, refers families to medical care, runs a savings scheme, and raises livestock. Their work is practical and unrelenting.
The group's impact has reached beyond nutrition. A belief had taken hold in the community that malnutrition was caused by witchcraft — a misconception that delayed care and cost children their health. As families began growing vegetables and watched their children improve, the myth lost its grip. Member Pole Pole Kigombe now trains others, demonstrating how even the smallest plots can yield meaningful nutrition.
The scale of the underlying crisis is sobering. Uganda hosts over 1.8 million refugees, and a 2025 assessment of Kyaka II found nearly 38% of screened children were stunted. Hundreds more were identified with acute malnutrition. Nutrition officer Caroline Uwera of KRC Uganda points to poverty, food insecurity, and knowledge gaps as the root causes — all compounded by funding shortfalls that have reduced food assistance across the settlement.
Kitchen gardens cannot fix a broken humanitarian funding system. But they represent something real: families reclaiming agency over what they can control, and demonstrating that community-led nutrition interventions can work. Whether the model can scale across Uganda's vast refugee population remains the open question — and perhaps the most urgent one.
In Kyaka II Refugee Settlement, tucked into Uganda's Kyegegwa district, a quiet intervention is taking root—literally. Refugee families are planting vegetables in small patches of earth around their homes, and in doing so, they are reversing one of the settlement's most persistent health crises: the malnutrition of children.
Mwamimu Hakiza, a 24-year-old from the Democratic Republic of Congo, watched her two-year-old son deteriorate. His hair turned a silky brown. His stomach protruded. His body grew thin. As a first-time mother, she did not recognize these as warning signs of severe malnutrition and delayed taking him for care until a neighbor, Bijoux Yowale, saw the child and insisted she seek help. Health workers confirmed what Hakiza had missed: her son was malnourished. They gave him medicine and porridge, and they gave her advice that would change her family's trajectory. Grow vegetables. Feed them to your child. Hakiza did. Her son recovered fully.
Yowale went further. She gathered nine other mothers and formed the Tujitengemee Care Group, a collective dedicated to teaching other families in the settlement how to establish kitchen gardens and understand why vegetables matter for children and pregnant women. The group cultivates dodo, cabbage, sukuma wiki, carrots, and onions—crops that require little space and yield nutrition that the settlement's food assistance programs, constrained by funding shortages, cannot always provide. The members do more than garden. They watch for signs of malnutrition in other children, refer mothers to medical care, operate a savings scheme, and raise livestock to supplement household income. The work is practical and relentless.
The results are visible. Yowale reports that the settlement, which once had many malnourished and sickly children, now shows healthier ones. But the group's impact extends beyond physical health. They have dismantled a dangerous belief that circulated through the community: that malnutrition was witchcraft. When families began feeding children vegetables and saw the children improve, the myth collapsed. Another member, Pole Pole Kigombe, notes that children who eat vegetables recover faster when they fall ill and do not become as weak as those without access to fresh food. Kigombe now trains other families, working around the settlement's land constraints by showing them how to use small plots efficiently.
The scale of the problem they are addressing is immense. Uganda hosts more than 1.8 million refugees and asylum seekers. In Kyaka II alone, an October 2025 nutrition assessment found that nearly 38 percent of children screened were stunted—a marker of chronic malnutrition. The same assessment identified 62 children with severe acute malnutrition and 359 with moderate acute malnutrition. Caroline Uwera, a nutrition officer at KRC Uganda, attributes the crisis to poverty, food insecurity, and gaps in nutrition knowledge. Her organization trains mothers on breastfeeding, complementary feeding, hygiene, and early detection of malnutrition, but the work is constrained by the same funding limitations that have reduced food assistance across the settlement.
Kitchen gardens are not a cure for systemic food insecurity. They are a response—a way for refugee families to take control of what they can control when the humanitarian system cannot meet their needs. They are also a proof of concept. If these small gardens can reverse malnutrition in one settlement, the question becomes whether the model can scale across Uganda's refugee population, and whether it might offer a sustainable complement to food assistance programs that are themselves under strain.
Citas Notables
We used to have many malnourished and sickly children, but since we started this group and encouraged families to feed children on vegetables, we are seeing healthier children.— Bijoux Yowale, leader of Tujitengemee Care Group
At first, some people thought malnutrition was witchcraft, but when we started feeding children vegetables and saw changes, that myth was broken.— Bijoux Yowale
La Conversación del Hearth Otra perspectiva de la historia
Why did it take a neighbor's intervention for Hakiza to recognize her son was malnourished? Wasn't that a failure of the health system?
It was a gap, not quite a failure. She was a first-time mother in a refugee settlement where malnutrition is so common that some families may not recognize it as abnormal. The health system exists, but it's stretched thin. A neighbor who had seen malnutrition before could see it immediately.
The care group talks about breaking the witchcraft myth. How deeply did that belief run?
Deep enough that families were not seeking medical care. They were treating malnutrition as a spiritual problem, not a nutritional one. When children started visibly improving after eating vegetables, the evidence was undeniable. Myth doesn't survive that kind of contradiction.
Kitchen gardens seem like a band-aid on a much larger wound—food insecurity, funding shortages, 1.8 million refugees.
They are. But they're also something else: they're agency. When the humanitarian system cannot guarantee food, families can guarantee vegetables. It's not a replacement for systemic change, but it's not nothing either.
What happens if the settlement runs out of land to lease from nationals?
That's the constraint Kigombe is already working around—showing families how to garden in the small spaces they have. But you're right to ask. The model works at a certain scale. Beyond that, you need the larger system to function.
Why hasn't this approach been scaled already?
Because it requires sustained community leadership, training, and coordination. It's not a commodity you can distribute. It's a practice you have to learn and adapt locally. That takes time and resources that are themselves scarce.