We currently operate horticultural projects in Sri Lanka, India, Tanzania and Northern Ghana.

Horticultural projects are a way of teaching mentally ill people valuable skills, such as self-reliance and decision making, which will last them for a life-time.

As well as learning a skill which could lead to future employment, participation in a horticulture project also means stabilised mentally ill people have a valuable food source which they can take back to their families.

An added benefit of the horticultural projects is that they also act as a form of therapy.

One of our most successful horticulture projects has been in Northern Ghana. Called Tin Laayisi (meaning, ‘We Will Rise Again’) the project has taken stabilised mentally people from the surrounding area and brought them together to train them in gardening skills. The project is on a piece of land donated by a local chief. With the help of a professional gardener, the participants are trained in gardening techniques by actually growing the crops themselves.

Aminu Nasam suffers from recurrent psychotic depression. His illness meant that he had to stop his work as a farmer and he lost his source of income. With nothing to do he simply wandered the streets all day. Without a job, Aminu was destined to live a life of extreme poverty, relying on the charity of his neighbours.

This all changed when Aminu was enrolled on the horticulture training project for mentally ill people where he is taught gardening and vegetable cultivation.

He says, “I am acquiring skills here that will help me get back to a normal life. I am no longer idle. My energy has now been diverted from walking about aimlessly to doing productive work.”

“It is curative working here. I have experienced significant improvement in my condition just by tending and watering the vegetables. I cannot explain this but the difference is real.”

In Sri Lanka, the horticultural project is based at the psychiatric hospital, in the grounds of the old colonial chief psychiatrist’s residence. In the psychiatric hospital, there are many mentally ill people who are stabilised, but who are still resident at the hospital because they have been dumped there and have no where to go.

The horticultural project engages these mentally ill people in constructive activity, as well as teaching them skills. The mentally ill people manage the project themselves, including the running of the shop, which sells the produce from the site.

The participants each have a savings account, where the profits of the shop are put, as well as getting a small amount each week to spend how they decide. Even this little step into decision making is revolutionary for the participants; it is often the first time that they have been allowed to make a decision on their own.