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Photo: Richard Nyberg, USAID/Senegal

Senegalese people living with HIV/AIDS tend to their produce that provides nutritious meals and a much-needed source of revenue.

People battling the stigma of HIV/AIDS face a daily challenge to earn their community’s respect. To make matters worse, over 85% of the 3,000 people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) seeking medical care at the Ambulatory Treatment Center in Dakar struggle to survive on less than $1 a day. USAID has stepped in to help many of these individuals with improved nutrition and an income-generating gardening activity that boosts their self-esteems while increasing opportunities for social interaction.

With its implementing partner and a nongovernmental organization, USAID began its support for the gardening activity in January 2007. HIV/AIDS patients not only benefit from the vegetables, but also have the opportunity to work in the garden and learn new gardening techniques. Gardens in Dakar and in the southern city of Ziguinchor are now self-sustaining, producing not only enough vegetables to feed the hospital’s patients, but enough surplus to sell on the open market and generate valuable income for the PLWHA working in the garden.

The gardening project also has brought PLWHA together in a productive and supportive social environment. The solidarity and care abounding has borne fruit, as five gardening couples have married.

M. Diop is a widow and mother of two teenage children who learned she was positive after her husband’s death in 1999. Early on, she lived in seclusion, for fear of being rejected by her family, covering her head as she made her way to medical checkups so that no one could identify her. But since 2002, she has visited the outpatient care center and has started to live again. “The gardening skills I have learned keep me busy and are very useful for me and for others. It’s like yesterday I was stumbling in the dark and today, I walk in the light,” she said.

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