What Next ?​

Money is needed to feed children living in children homes. And one of the daily needs of money for expenses in every children homes is daily need of green vegetables. There is only one kitchen garden in every 20 children homes. ​Therefore, there is no doubt children homes need money because only 5% of homes have their own kitchen gardens. This is largely because 80% of homes are being run in rented houses. Some who have their 'own land' have it only for about 10 - 15 years on lease. Not surprisingly, over 80% of the children homes' founders/managers depend on foreign donations to run the homes. However, there are some exceptions which entirely depend on the kindness of local people. Needless to say, children homes which run under the support of local people are in dire need of financial support even for basic needs. Groceries and school fees are basics to run a children home and these children homes struggle to manage both on time.

So, to address at least a part of the food inadequacy is to help establish Rooftop Kitchen Gardens (RTKG) where possible. When we help establish RTKG, we go there with a plan to help them get at least 50% of their annual need of vegetables. Thanks to the coco peat and organic fertilizer mix, which made it possible to have a roof top garden without being worried about how to reduce heavy load on the roof and where to get good quality soil. This idea might look easy, but implementing it needs the strong association with experts; be it amateurs or professionals who are focused on these types of small but productive roof top gardens.

We plan to set up Roof Top Kitchen Gardens in children homes along with free training. We would have started it by now but because of Corona virus and the lock down that came with it, this plan has been on hold for some time. With a second wave of infections, people are scared and people are not delivering grow bags and coco peat even after an order has been placed. When we can do so, one week of training will be given year round as and where required. This facilitating training is given to all the interested homes and their keen staff members, who are sent by children homes' management teams. This training will be of a weeks long session in each children home which will go year round as per the need of children homes. This training will focus mainly on four major areas like :

• how to manage kitchen waste.

• how to make organic compost.

• how to make organic pesticides insect repellents.

• how our kitchen waste can be used as organic fertilizer.

• which vegetables can be grown in which months.

It is hoped that such training will help children homes to get the maximum result out of the Kitchen Gardens / Roof Top Kitchen Gardens. This small effort which requires almost no hard work is also hoped to instill in the young minds how people have to work continuously to have an uninterrupted food supply on table which never goes out of fashion.