By Pam Haigh | Project Leader
RIPPLE Africa's sweet potato project, Plant. Share. Eat is going from strength to strength. We have been spending some time recently with some of the farmers growing the new orange fleshed sweet potatoes and have also done some research on the nutritional status of our preschool pupils to see what difference the project is making to what they eat and how much their parents know about good nutrition.
Witley Phiri and his wife, Modesta live in Jerere Village and have 9 children and 8 grandchildren. Witley has been a farmer since 1978, and began to plant the new orange fleshed sweet potato last year when it was introduced by Ripple Africa into the region. Witley also grows maize, onions, pumpkins, sugar cane, ground nuts, beans and bananas. They have found that they are able to cook this variety of sweet potato using much less water than the white fleshed sweet potato variety that they have been growing for many years. This has been a great help as it saves precious water, which all has to be collected from the pump and carried to each house. However, we are now trying to make sure that this message gets spread around both to save water and to prevent the sweet potatoes from going too soft during the cooking process. Modesta is delighted to be growing the more nutritious sweet potatoes and tells us that her grandchildren absolutely love them! She says that it takes 40 minutes to cook them on her changu changu moto, RIPPLE Africa's fuel efficient cookstove.
We have recently done some research with our preschool children and their families to find out if they bring snacks to preschool and if so what they bring. We also asked what they eat at home and how many meals they eat each day and also whether they have ever been referred to the malnutrition clinic. We are just in the process of analysing the results but the good news is that all the parents know that their children will receive a nutritious lunch at preschool and this is one of the main reasons for them wanting their children to attend regularly. A great boost to both their health and their education, thanks to donors like you! The preschool children would like to say thank you to you all and to wish you a very happy Christmas - they hope that you will also be eating yummy sweet potatoes!
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