The Antigua and Barbuda Association for Persons Living with Disabilities (ABAPD) President, Bernard Warner, has called the Farmers Garden Project “life-changing” for many people in the country living with disabilities.
Speaking to Observer media yesterday, Warner said the project was “Bearing fruit and vegetables, and it is changing lives.”
According to Warner, the association received a US$50,000 grant from the Global Environment Facility (GEF) Small Grants Program to embark on the project located in the Belmont area.
“We are thankful for the GEF’s Small Grants Program that saw the vision to empower people with disabilities, and we are really showing that people with disabilities can produce, can feed themselves, their nation, and contribute towards food security,” Warner stated.
He noted that only US$20,000 of that grant fund has been used thus far in the project.
“We still have a long way to grow in terms of finance, and we just received our second instalment of $20,000, so the ABAPD is still strong, still active,” he said.
In February 2022, the ABAPD was the recipient of a grant program entitled, “The use of climate- smart techniques to increase food production and improve food security for persons with disabilities living in Antigua and Barbuda.”
The program was designed to give persons with disabilities the platform to learn agriculture and use Climate Smart and Climate Resilient technology to feed themselves and others.