Pravati Pujari, an adolescent girl of 12 years from Mendukuli village of Dalpatiguda GP in Mathili Block studies in Std. V. Her five-membered family includes – father, mother, one brother, a sister and herself. Being marginal farmers, her parents work in the agricultural field. Apart from the agricultural work, they used to do daily labour to supplement their income for the survival of their family.

In the meantime, the Government of Odisha made provision for promotion and implementation of “Mo Upakari Bagicha” scheme to help enrich the nutritional deficiency of adolescents, pregnant and lactating mothers. Pravati’s parents prepared a nutritional kitchen garden in their backyard field. Pravati being a sponsor child of CYSD, the project supported her family with technical guidance and facilitated vegetable seeds from Odisha Livelihoods Mission (OLM) to initiate nutritional gardening. Pravati with her siblings’ support took proper care of the kitchen garden. Gradually, the garden grew up with varieties of vegetable plants like, Bitter gourd, Ridge gourd, Spinach, Brinjal, green chili, lemon, green banana and Palak leaves.

During Covid-19 pandemic, as an impact her father could not get job opportunity regularly to fulfil the basic needs of his family. Green vegetable and leafy items for their food plate was a dream. But, surprisingly the initiative of Pravati supported her family with green fresh veg food intake.

“I am utilising my leisure hours after my study in the nutri-garden, only 15-20 days’ effort is enough to get green vegetables for a small family on a daily basis. I am thankful to CYSD for giving us the idea with necessary training and facilitating seeds support from the Government free of cost,” says Parvati.

After Kharif they are also planning to continue vegetable cultivaion in Rabi season. Like Pravati many adolescents have adopted kitchen gardens and engaged themselves in nutri gardening work and taking green vegetable in their food plates to reduce nutritional deficiencies.

Pravati’s father says, “During this Corona lock down, he has earned Rs. 2000/- from vegetable selling apart from fulfilling the family requirements. My sincere thanks to CYSD for facilitating my family to get enrolled in ‘Mo Upakari Bagicha’ scheme through OLM, Malkangiri”.