Empowering Women Through Kitchen Gardens: International Women's Day 2025

In celebration of International Women's Day 2025, Roots & Shoots Rwanda partnered with the INES Environment Club and the Natural Guardian Club to establish kitchen gardens for vulnerable single women in Rwambogo Cell, Rwanda.

The initiative was held under the theme:

"Women in Action for the Prevention of Malnutrition"

What We Did

Volunteers and partners worked directly with women from vulnerable households to plant:

• Fruit trees: avocado, papaya, and tree tomatoes
• Vegetables: amaranthus, carrots, and cabbage

These were not symbolic plantings — they were productive gardens designed to provide ongoing nutrition and food security for families who face real hardship.

The Bigger Picture

Food insecurity and malnutrition remain significant challenges for vulnerable households across Rwanda. Kitchen gardens offer a practical, sustainable, and dignified solution — empowering women to produce their own food, reduce household expenses, and improve the nutrition of their children.

This activity sits at the intersection of Roots & Shoots Rwanda's three pillars: care for people, care for animals, and care for the environment. Growing food sustainably connects all three.

Women as Agents of Change

International Women's Day is a moment to celebrate women's achievements — but for Roots & Shoots Rwanda, it is also a moment to act. True empowerment is not symbolic. It is practical, tangible, and sustained.

By giving vulnerable women productive gardens, we are not just providing food. We are providing agency — the ability to feed a family, to contribute to a household, to make decisions. That is what empowerment looks like in practice.

Partners

• INES Environment Club
• Natural Guardian Club