FARM STEW INTERNATIONAL

FARM STEW is a recipe for an abundant life. Our mission is to improve the health and well-being of poor families and vulnerable people throughout the world. It's designed to root out the causes of hunger disease and poverty.

These are FARM STEW's five goals, related to the UN's Sustainable Development Goals:
1. Battle Stunting
"Decrease stunting and wasting in children under 5 years of age", and increase dietary diversity in order to "address the nutritional needs of adolescent girls, pregnant and lactating women and older persons" per the UN's Sustainable Development Goal #2.2

2. Establish Home Gardens
Establish kitchen gardens and conservation agriculture by training and equipping subsistence farm families seeking to "end hunger and ensure access by all people, in particular, the poor and people in vulnerable situations, including infants to safe, nutritious and sufficient food year," per the UN's Sustainable Development Goal#2.1

3. Increase Food Availability
Increase simple, domestic processing locally available and affordable plant-based foods to maximize nutrient value, particularly soybeans, maize, fruits, and vegetables; per the e UN's Sustainable Development Goal#2.4

4. Develop Small Business
Develop entrepreneurial skills for Income Generating Activities (IGA) with agricultural products, per the UN's Sustainable Development Goal #8.

5. Improve Sanitation
"Achieve access to adequate and equitable sanitation and hygiene for all and end open defecation, paying special attention to the needs of women and girls and those in vulnerable situations" per the UN's Sustainable Development Goal#6

Our ultimate goal is family and community transformation that would lead to abundant life!

Through African Christian leaders, we educate rural, African families how to live an abundant life. FARM STEW teams of indigenous workers meet these families where they are, encouraging and equipping them to make choices that contribute to their health and well-being.

FARM STEW's eight “ingredients", that we train in include:
• Farming: Faithfulness to principles revealed in God's word and observed in nature
• Attitude: Choice to live God's way, to be disciplined and to have a positive outlook
• Rest: Nightly and weekly for our bodies and also not disturbing the soil and covering it
• Meals: Plant-based, whole foods diet using mostly what the family can grow themselves

• Sanitation: In our bodies, with a focus on women, with our food and around our homes
• Temperance: Moderation in good things, abstaining from things that are harmful
• Enterprise: Promoting opportunities, addressing gender bias, to pursue sustainability
• Water: Fresh, in abundance, detoxifying, for grains and legumes, as well as for our bodies

FARM STEW vision is to mobilize a global workforce, in small, highly efficient teams that are master trainers, serving to equip communities and faith-based groups to carry out the work independently. We train trainers who multiply the reach of the message. So far we've partnered with schools, mosques, churches, prisons, HIV/AIDs groups and many organizations to carry the message to their members and beyond.

Founded by Joy Kauffman, MPH, a Johns Hopkins trained public health nutritionist with a 30-year commitment to holistic health for the poor, FARM STEW combines decades of experience in international development, nutrition and health. In Uganda, our team of 7 talented local, Christian staff includes a nutritionist, agronomist, IT/communications and certified trainers.
We are a growing organization that has come a long way in a short time. Here are five capabilities we've acquired.
1. Talent:
We are good at attracting, motivating, and retaining competent and committed people. We invest in training them and giving expanding opportunities for leadership. We are good at ensuring that team members and program participants have positive and consistent experiences with FARM STEW.
2. Speed:
We are good at reaching the community and making important changes rapidly. For example, when a severe drought added to the hunger of local people, we found that jackfruit and moringa from two tropical trees remained in abundance. Our classes then incorporated these highly nutritious products into the curriculum
3. Accountability and Efficiency:
We are good at assuring integrity and stewardship of our resources. Our volunteer bookkeeper is a Mennonite Farmer who works for H&R Block as a tax preparer during tax season. We are good at managing costs, working with the local staffs and maximizing their impact.
4. Collaboration:
We are good at working with others to ensure both efficiency and leverage. For example, we have received thousands of dollars worth of AFRIPads, reusable cloth pads made in Uganda because of the work that we've done to share them with rural village girls.
5. Learning:
We are good at listening to local people and generating and generalizing ideas with impact. For example, after learning that girls were dropping out of school because of shame related to menstruation, we found a local company that produces reusable cloth pads and raised funds to provide them to girls.

Tens of thousands of people have attended full-day training held in villages, schools, mosques, orphanages, churches, and prisons. Testimonies of improved health and livelihood abound. In just three and a half years, we’ve accomplished the following:
• Developed 20 Certified FARM STEW Trainers with skills in nutrition, agriculture and child survival,
• Sold at subsidized prices over 3,000 Kg of improved variety, Non-GMO soybeans to farmers to improve yields,
• Distributed thousands of vegetable seedlings for vegetable gardens,
• Provided 2,100 girls with reusable cloth menstrual pads, made in Africa, and,
• Supplied more than 500 training packs that include instruction guide and low-literacy visual aids that equip the community leaders.

Finally, we see the need for a health food industry that could produce the soy-based proteins, legumes and multigrain foods that would enhance the nutrition of the general population as well as help to finance the local workers for FARM STEW. We've established a company in Uganda called FARM STEW Ltd. that would serve as the legal entity for the work, allocating profits to the organization. We need to start up capital for the industry, but we believe that in the long term, this model is sustainable and will provide multiple benefits to all involved.

Would you consider being part of mobilizing African health and agricultural workers for this cause? We need support to grow and expand this model.