Participants in one of the Ruben Centre’s “agronutrition” programs, which reduce food insecurity in a low-income area by providing training in urban vegetable gardening. Photo courtesy of the Ruben Centre.
By BGR Staff
Mukuru kwa Ruben is an informal settlement in Nairobi, Kenya, characterized by high poverty levels, food insecurity, and limited livelihood opportunities. Chronic malnutrition is widespread here, particularly among children under 10, with rates of growth stunting due to malnutrition as high as 32 percent.
BGR partner the Ruben Centre provides education, health care, vocational training, and social services to children and families in the Mukuru community. Founded in 1986 as a Catholic primary school, the Ruben Centre has evolved over the decades to become a multifaceted cornerstone of the community. Operating under the aegis of the Christian Brothers African Province, the Ruben Centre’s services to the local community now include vocational classes, a health clinic, and programs working to eliminate child labor, reduce poverty, and respond to the urgent needs of marginalized individuals, especially women and abandoned children.
The BGR–Ruben Centre partnership began in 2022 with an “agronutrition” project that addressed local food insecurity by offering training in urban farming practices including vegetable gardening, greenhouse management, and the cultivation of food-producing trees. A 2025 project builds on this partnership with a focus specifically on alleviating child malnutrition. This year’s project is providing needed supplemental nutrition to more than 3,000 of Mukuru’s most vulnerable children, including babies and disabled children. The project has an urban-agricultural component as well, supporting training in urban farming for 400 people, more than two-thirds of them women. The trainings focus on techniques such as hydroponics; circular gardening, which entails the planting of trees and other food plants in a ring formation designed to maximize water conservation; and vertical gardening, in which plants are grown in containers set along the walls of homes and other structures. Upon completion of the training, 70 women farmers will also receive start-up home gardening kits containing materials needed for vertical gardening and mushroom production.
Faith, a single mother of two young children, shared that the Ruben Centre’s urban agriculture trainings have helped her not only reduce her food costs but also improve the nutritional value of her children’s diets. Alice Wanjiru, the Ruben Centre’s agricultural officer, taught Faith an innovative “barrel gardening” technique, involving a cylindrical pipe filled with layers of ballast and soil, that enabled her to grow fresh, nutritious vegetables in her small backyard space. Empowered with new skills to support her family, Faith is now sharing her knowledge with others in her community, helping other families to achieve food security and improve their livelihoods.
Esther and her husband faced a problem common to those living in Mukuru: Though both she and her husband worked when they could find employment, their income was often insufficient to keep food on the table. Following the birth of the couple’s first child, concerned about the baby’s vulnerability to malnutrition, Esther joined a community-based urban farming initiative through the Ruben Centre and, with the skills and support she obtained there, created a thriving container garden in her small kitchen space. The garden provided needed nutrition for Esther and her family and even allowed Esther to earn income through selling her crops. She has now become an outspoken advocate for sustainable urban agriculture, sharing her expertise and inspiring others to adopt similar practices. Her baby is now flourishing, and Esther has begun expanding her farming venture, aspiring to establishing a sustainable agribusiness.
As a young mother, Evarline was struggling to make ends meet through odd jobs like scrap-metal collecting when she learned about the Ruben Centre’s urban agriculture trainings. With Wanjiru’s support, she created a small barrel garden at her home and joined a table-banking group with other mothers, gaining access to financial support for essential needs like school fees and household expenses. Evarline now teaches other mothers to create their own barrel gardens.
BGR’s partnership with the Ruben Centre is having a positive impact on the lives of hundreds of families facing food insecurity solely because of where they live and the limited opportunities that have been provided to them. We express our deep gratitude to all of BGR’s supporters—to all of you whose generosity makes these and other projects possible.
This article is based on project reporting by BGR partner the Ruben Centre.
