Mrs. Scovia attending to her kitchen garden
Mrs. Scovia is a 33 year old lady who lives in Lugalama village, Wabusaana parish, Kinuuka subcounty in Lyantonde district. Mrs. Scovia and her husband are both Persons Living with HIV/AIDS with 06 children (03 boys and 03 girls) of which 02 children are HIV positive. Scovia began falling sick on and off until she got an idea of going to

Kinuuka Health Centre III to test for HIV. According to the results, she tested HIV positive and was enrolled on ART in 2012 after experiencing a low CD4 count. At the same time, she had several opportunistic infections which resulted in being bed ridden for 5 months. When she started
ART, her condition improved steadily.

In 2013, Scovia benefited from the Kitchen Garden project. The RACOBAO Community Based Trainer helped her prepare a vegetable kitchen garden that included greens and egg plants after realizing that she was very weak due to poor nutrition. The purpose of preparing her a kitchen garden was to enable her family get vegetables to boost their nutrition which was also a recommendation from the medical practitioners.

Scovia was successful with her kitchen garden because her family was able to feed from the vegetables. The variety of vegetables helped to improve her nutrition hence reducing the side effects of ARV drugs. Presently, Scovia is healthy, does farming and house work activities. “This kitchen garden has helped me a lot both economically and health wise because I no longer go to the market in search of vegetables since I have them in my kitchen garden. This has helped me save my little money for other basic needs, improve my nutrition as well as for my children and husband. I will continue taking care of the kitchen garden and add some other new types of vegetables in it because it saved my life” Scovia said.