In 2021 A Little Gesture put forward a new pilot project, after school hours, a community vegetable hut (machamba) near Sta. Luísa de Marillac School. This vegetable hut tries to generate income and also to promote teamwork and accountability for a more challenging age group.

Rafael is one of the young people who has been benefiting from this vegetable hut (“machamba”) (we can see his mother in this photo). Rafael is 20 years old and entered the HIV Day Care Centre in 2014. He is an orphan and lives with his grandmother and an uncle with mental health problems. Rafael has always been an active child, sometimes too active, since he used to cut classes to play around. Studies haven’t always gone well for Rafael, but throughout the years he has been more and more committed, and we observed a huge academic and behavioural evolution.
More than growing produce, this vegetable hut’s aim is to sow the future, since this project’s goal is to increase school attendance by older youngsters like Rafael.