After months of research into alternatives, Women of Hope Project has teamed up with the International Institute of Simplified Hydroponics to train the women heads of households, disabled men, and street children how to grow Gardens of Hope so that they will not only have nutritious food to eat, but will eventually be able to secure a family income.
Hydroponics is simply a system of growing food without soil, using rice hulls, sand, and gravel instead. Nutrients are also added to the water supply. This system uses 1/10th the water needed for regular soil irrigation, and produces four times the amount of food in very small spaces.
Afghanistan is still covered in land mines, suffers from a shortage of water due to a six year drought, and endures a 95% illiteracy rate. One in four children under the age of five die, mostly from dysentery from contaminated water and food sources.
Many families in the refugee camps only eat vegetables once a month, with their normal diet consisting of rice, bread, and water. Sometimes these families go without any food at all 1-2 days each week. This hydroponic gardening system is so simple that even small children and the disabled can garden successfully. The seed beds are built in boxes off the ground or in small plastic containers, such as soda bottles, so that even the disabled can maneuver their wheelchairs throughout the garden and tend their seed beds with only one arm.
Women of Hope Project has built a small greenhouse at the Ministry of Agriculture in Kabul to set up a demonstration and training facility called the Institute of Simplified Hydroponics Afghanistan (ISHA) to teach Master Trainers in this soil-less micro-garden technology. Once trained, these Master Trainers will be sent out to various orphanages, hospitals, schools, centers for the disabled, women's projects, and remove villages across Afghanistsan to conduct classes in building and maintaining these micro-gardens and to train and equip Local Trainers in these areas, each of whom will be responsible to support five households with technical support.
Hydroponics is simply a system of growing food without soil, using rice hulls, sand, and gravel instead. Nutrients are also added to the water supply. This system uses 1/10th the water needed for regular soil irrigation, and produces four times the amount of food in very small spaces.
h, with their normal diet consisting of rice, bread, and water. Sometimes these families go without any food at all 1-2 days each week. This hydroponic gardening system is so simple that even small children and the disabled can garden successfully. The seed beds are built in boxes off the ground or in small plastic containers, such as soda bottles, so that even the disabled can maneuver their wheelchairs throughout the garden and tend their seed beds with only one arm.
try of Agriculture in Kabul to set up a demonstration and training facility called the Institute of Simplified Hydroponics Afghanistan (ISHA) to teach Master Trainers in this soil-less micro-garden technology. Once trained, these Master Trainers will be sent out to various orphanages, hospitals, schools, centers for the disabled, women's projects, and remove villages across Afghanistsan to conduct classes in building and maintaining these micro-gardens and to train and equip Local Trainers in these areas, each of whom will be responsible to support five households with technical support. 
