Malawi

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Situated on church property 2kms outside the Dzaleka Refugee Camp which is home to over 50,000 refugees fleeing conflict from the African Great Lakes region. There is significant overcrowding and strain on resources in the camp because it was initially designed to host 10,000 refugees.

In the past there has often been tension between the local Kakande village and refugees from Dzaleka, however this project has brought them together. They now co-labour together, to learn the agricultural techniques, and worship together in the church building on site. This community garden includes a deep borehole, solar powered pump system, water storage tower and tanks, domestic drinking water kiosk, and drip irrigation system.

Approximately a 2.5 hour drive southeast from Lilongwe, this community garden is situated in fertile but relatively hilly terrain. We have trained farmers in the installation of erosion control systems along with our typical crop and livestock production program. The project is bordered by a seasonal creek which has enough flow for part of the year to provide water for drip irrigation. Farmers have pooled some of their profits from excess production to invest in solar pumps to expand the production area along the creek flowing through their own land. This community garden includes a deep borehole, solar powered pump system, water storage tower and tanks, domestic drinking water kiosk, and drip irrigation system.

On the main highway running alongside Lake Malawi, the third largest lake in Africa, this community demonstration garden is in a popular tourist area. Food insecurity is high in this region because of the long hot dry season, especially for those who are not able to get jobs in the two main industries: tourism and fishing. Our project here educates people to be self-sufficient and, in time, we expect to teach people along the shoreline to utilize the water from the lake to grow crops using drip irrigation that they can sell.

A number of the church plants in the Mangochi region are overseen by Bishop Peter, as well as a few isolated churches in neighbouring Mozambique just across the lake. Missionaries and pastors, led by the Bishop, combine their agricultural training - learned through the garden - and pastoral skills, to serve and reach out to other local communities.

This community garden includes a deep borehole, solar powered pump system, water storage tank tower and tanks, domestic drinking water kiosk, and drip irrigation system to an established church in the community. We also provided an egg incubator for them to hatch chickens.

Based in Lilongwe at the Pentecostal Assemblies of Malawi, the unique opportunity here is that rural pastors throughout the country live here for 3 months to receive theological education from the church leadership. Alongside their education they receive training from our team on how to grow crops using our methods. It is a significant time commitment for these pastors. They work in the garden at daybreak, then go to classes, and finish their day in the garden before going to bed. Because crops typically mature in about 3 months, these pastors/farmers are able to work through the continuous growing program experiencing harvest and planting from week one and doing the same each week for the 12 week course. Once graduated the pastors go back to their remote villages as trained theological pastors and farm leaders, teaching their communities how to farm the way they were taught.

Additionally, the center has a primary school where children also learn how to grow vegetables with drip irrigation, how to hatch and care for chicks alongside their regular education. We pray the agricultural skills they learn here will be embedded as they get older, removing their dependence on others for food like generations before them. This community garden includes a deep borehole, solar powered pump system, water storage tank tower and tanks, and drip irrigation system. We also provided an egg incubator to them to hatch chickens.

This remote farming community about 3 hours by car from Burundi’s capital city of Bujumbura, a mountainous region in the province of Gitega. There are limited job opportunities but it has fertile soil and people can be food secure through growing their own crops and livestock. Along with our regular method of training we have also proven to the local farmers that, in addition to conserving moisture by placing crop residue over planting beds, erosion is greatly reduced on their terraced mountain community demonstration garden. The pastor of the local church is also the agricultural leader in the community and receives ongoing support from our team in Bujumbura.

This community garden includes a collection tank and connected it to an artesian well, a solar powered pump system to elevate the water to storage tanks far up the hillside, a domestic drinking water kiosk, and a drip irrigation system to an established church in the community.

We have recently started the development of a community demonstration garden at an established church site approximately 30 minutes from Burundi’s capital city of Bujumbura. A well providing drinking water is already available to supply water for drip irrigation. We are in the process of enhancing the nutrients in the soil by adding manure and will soon begin pipe work to facilitate the demonstration garden with the drip irrigation infrastructure. 

This community garden is situated in the 275,000 person tented camp, in Goma, and includes a rain capture and drip irrigation system. We set it up in response to the humanitarian situation created by the rebel violence and within 2 months the project was growing fast and was already expanding outside of our garden. We also have plans to build a new church building for our pastor who, with his young family, are displaced and living in the camp.

In January 2025, rebels attacked the camp, shelters were burned to the ground and all occupants were forced to flee to nearby Goma. Although the camp was destroyed, miraculously our demonstration garden, which borders the camp, was left unscathed and vegetables growing provided sustenance for some hungry locals while the area was abandoned. Once stability in the region is restored we intend to re-establish a training program again to assist the many orphans and widows affected by this tragedy. We are continuing to support our partners who are providing security and shelter for their orphan primary school students in the interim.

This community garden is approximately 30 minutes by road from Bukavu, the capital of South Kivu province. The established church and school is in the village where our African leader, Moses, hails from. Our agricultural training has been well received and learned by the locals so within the first year of operations many farmers in the area have implemented the program on their own farms. In the Ruzizi River valley where local farmers thought only cattle could graze, they have utilized their new found knowledge and are producing large amounts of valuable vegetables. 

This community garden includes a deep borehole, solar powered pump system, water storage tower and tanks, domestic drinking water kiosk, rain capture and drip irrigation system.