A Family Garden That Provides More Than Food

“It is a privilege to have participated in this project because it has given us breathing room, and now we have better food.”

If you are invited to dinner at María Peralta’s house, you are in for an impressive meal. The 60-year-old farmer, an indigenous Quechua woman, offers corn, beans, potatoes and vegetable soup flavored with aromatic herbs and fruit juices. These are just a few of the products she grows in the garden behind her house.

Maria and her daughters in the vegetable garden behind their house. (photo: Donna Morris/Oxfam America This photo is 400 x 266 pixels, 300 dpi, jpg format, 766.14 kb. You can right-click to save the file on your computer.

At 60 square yards, her garden is roughly the size of a tennis court. But it has made a big difference in the lives of Maria and her children. With the money earned from selling livestock and vegetables, she buys schoolbooks and uniforms for her daughters Clarita and Juanita, who are 10 and 16, and her 20-year-old son, Angelo. Rosita, the oldest at 23, not only finished high school, but will also be the first in the family to attend university.

“Everything we have comes from this garden,” Maria said proudly. “My older children couldn't go to school when they were little, but I was able to pay for school for them when they were older.”

Her business is part of a family garden project that Global Impact member charity Oxfam America supports with a grant to the Center for Pluricultural Studies. The grant is part of an innovative development plan designed to help 30,000 indigenous people in the area improve their diet and health, as well gain access to education and a better standard of living.

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