Probably the biggest hurdle in starting life over in a new country (after overcoming the trauma of losing your established life and loved ones) is that many people arrive with only the clothes on their back. You are given a white tarp with the blue logo “UNHCR”, 4 sticks to use as tent poles, a 20-liter jerry can for water, a food ration card (that only lasts 3 weeks eating one time a day – but we will get to that), and a cooking pot to start you new life. Few if any displaced people here have additional resources – like money – to start over.

The field team directs us to Zone 5B, block 11 where their program is operating. The first thing that strikes me is that this is the most oddly idyllic setting for a refugee settlement I have ever visited. The ones I have experienced have been in arid valleys with no trees surrounded by barren land. But this place is on the verge of lush with green trees, deep red clay dirt, and abundant signs of greenery, thanks to the Permagarden project vegetable gardens growing on almost every spare square inch of land. The importance of the garden is driven home when we visit another block inside the camp; they seem barren compared to the area where AWR is working. ©Sarah Fretwell

Permagarden participants people burst into spontaneous dance and song to show their appreciation for African Women Rising's Permagarden project and all it has done for them upon our arrival. ©Sarah Fretwell

We met a group of 30 farmers gathered on a boulder under a huge tree. The farmers are put in groups to work, mentor, and assist each other. Some also participate in microfinance groups that help pool money to help farmers with investing and saving money. ©Sarah Fretwell

The World Food Program tent food weighing and distribution center for their monthly rations. When you become a refugee your food ration card entitles you to food provided by the World Food Program. With food shortages in the WFP and the camp, many people are digitally fingerprinted and some retina scanned for their rations. ©Sarah Fretwell

Sample rations for one person for one month (left to right) maize, beans, flour, oil, and salt). Your rations measured down to the ounce – are supposed to last you for one month. Most people are only able to eat one time a day for three weeks and then go hungry the last week of the month. In addition, their bodies are shutting down(brain fog, blurred eyesight, and lack of breastmilk for nursing mothers) because they have no micronutrients due to a lack of variety and green vegetables. ©Sarah Fretwell

When I completed the food distribution with one young woman I met, she was thumb printed and retina scanned before she could collect a portion so small, I was in shock. The contrast of biometric metering vs the meager low-quality food was not lost on me. It seemed like a cruel joke. I think it would last me about two weeks and I would feel like shit. It is going to be her only food for one month and she was just retina scanned to get it. She is carrying rations for two people for one month 74.74 lbs (33.9 kgs). She has an hour's walk back to her hut from the distribution center. ©Sarah Fretwell

After her husband was killed during fighting in South Sudan, Yaka Lucia walked with nothing but her three children – two months pregnant – to the border of Uganda to be brought to a refugee camp. Seven months later she delivered her baby girl in her mud hut with the help of two women she had just met. As the head of the household, she somehow had the time to start a permagarden and is now able to feed her children for the entire month, until the next round of World Food Program rations is given. ©Sarah Fretwell

Most families eat one time a day so their food rations last for three weeks at a time. This family is eating the staple of the camp maize/soya porridge. Those who do not have permagardens usually go without food the last week of the month. ©Sarah Fretwell

The most happening part of town is called “Jerusalem.” There is a pharmacy/clinic, restaurants, hotels, a tailor, a bicycle-powered lathe for sharpening blades, shops, and a dance hall. Some of the business owners are Ugandan who have come to make money, some are Ugandans who have come to help, and some like the Sudanese barber are people who arrived here with a trade. This barber was lucky enough to bring his sheers and shaver has the most popular (and only) barbershop in town. ©Sarah Fretwell

Many of African Women Rising’s Permagarden trainers are refugees themselves who live and work in Palabeck Refugee Settlement. In the first two days of the three day training much of what they do is give the permagarden principles a cultural context, “What do your children need to survive? Plants need the same thing. Who here gives as much care to their kale as to their daughter (which he notes always elicits laughter)? If we want our system to be strong, plants also need water, air, nutrients and protection, just like our children.” ©Sarah Fretwell

The mentors walk each refugee family’s 30m x 30m plot with the group, what they calls a ‘landscape resource walk,’ – so everyone can see they have a great variety of useful and free waste resources around them – charcoal dust, dried manure, fallen leaves and nutrition for the soil in the rubbish pits and bush all around them. Participants ‘walk the water,’ coming to understand the flow of rainwater across their land as they learn key principles in how to manage it to their benefit. To the left of this garden is a dishwashing stand next to permagarden to utilize water runoff using "stacking functions" to strengthen the system. ©Sarah Fretwell

After three days of training, people who have lost everything, are now re-empowered with relevant education and seeds to create their garden. Two weeks later they are able to harvest their first greens. And within a month or two they are able to feed their family for the entire month, provide their family with veggies that will nourish their body and mind, and sell vegetables. Within a few more months they are able to save money, have extra money to do things like go to the doctor, and start other small businesses. Pictured here are the feet of two hardworking farmers in the program. ©Sarah Fretwell

Established home made from mud bricks and a UNHCR tarp to waterproof the roof. . ©Sarah Fretwell

This garden has been established for many months and is thriving to the point his family is eating from the garden and he is selling from it. He is growing kale, kowpiss (spinach), pumpkins, okra, and more.©Sarah Fretwell

Last year Lakot Linda (62 years old) arrived in Palabek with her 4 grandchildren and she is the sole provider for the entire family and assumes her son (their father) died in the war in Sudan. © Sarah Fretwell

At the outdoor classroom inside the camp, many children have problems focusing and seeing the chalkboard due to brain fog and blurred vision that comes from lack of critical nutrients in their diet. Permagardens are helping reverse this (within two weeks of planting), but getting micro greens into people's diets.

Agusti 33 years old arrived in Palabek camp one year ago with seven members in his family after fleeing the war in South Sudan. ©Sarah Fretwell

One of the most successful entrepreneurs in the program. Not only is Agusti's garden thriving, we discover over the course of the interview he has opened two other businesses, bought a goat with veggies he sold, has managed to increase his income by approximately 150%, and open another business. ©Sarah Fretwell

When families start selling veggies from their garden they have the income to supplement school fees and take children to the doctor for treatment. ©Sarah Fretwell

School children in the Palabek Refugee Settlement take a break from their outdoor classroom (a class gathers under each tree) and clown around for the camera. ©Sarah Fretwell

Yaka Lucia, in the beginnings of her Permagarden with her baby. Before Yaka Lucia planted her garden, they were only living on maize, soya porridge and beans. She tells me that living on food rations, her breast milk dried up and she was unable to feed her baby. Once she started eating the greens from her garden her breast milk returned. She has been able to feed all the kids between her Permagarden and her food rations, she has not yet had the extra money to save and start a small business. ©Sarah Fretwell