Community Garden & Nutrition One DWM objective is to help improve the nutrition of villagers. In the early years we supplied food to abandoned and neglected elderly persons, single mothers, and others. We now demonstrate home gardening so villagers can raise their own food at home, and earn a modest income by selling their surplus. We allocated 3 acres of our farm for raising vegetables that local villagers can obtain in exchange for light labor, or purchase at less than our cost. The garden’s surplus is wholesaled to the Maitum town market (about 8.5 km away). The proceeds from these sales pay for seed and fertilizer. The project, which started in 2014, has improved the nutrition of villagers and served as a livelihood project. Many now have their own family gardens. We also partner with the Department of Agriculture to conduct Farmer’s Field Schools that teach organic vegetable raising. Donations to the DWM Foundation supplement this project by providing tractor fuel and hiring workers.

Books for Schools When we arrived in 2007, we discovered that few schools in our area had libraries or any collection of books for children to read. In those early years, the Department of Education wasn’t even providing textbooks (that has since changed). Over the years, friends in the U.S. collected and shipped used books, which enabled us to distribute about 7,000 books to local schools. If you would like to participate in this project, let us know by email at: letters@datuwalimission.org . We have provided a document detailing the guidelines, plus a downloadable poster that you might place in a local business when you conduct a book drive.