What We Grow, Grows us
This poem was written by Lilian Nakigozi and read by Marie-Antoinette Micheli during the first Global Conscious Food System Summit that took place in Bhutan (August 31st - September 4th, 2026).
“I come carrying a story
that began with hunger.
I grew up in Katanga,
where poverty was not a word in a report,
but something we knew,
something we felt,
something that shaped our dreams.
And when I was eight,
I lost my three-year-old sister to starvation.
That loss planted a question in me,
a question that has never left:
What would the world look like
if no child ever had to die
because there was not enough food?
Years later,
that question became WomenGro Initiative.
Today, I stand alongside women
who are turning soil into opportunity,
organic waste into fertilizer,
small spaces into farms,
and climate challenges into livelihoods.
Women who are not waiting to be saved.
Women who are building.
Women who are leading.
Women who are growing.
And through them,
I have learned that transforming food systems
requires more than new technologies
and better policies.
It requires us to see differently.
To see women not as beneficiaries,
but as producers, innovators, entrepreneurs and leaders.
To see smallholder farmers
not simply as people who need knowledge,
but as people who already carry knowledge.
To see young people
not as unemployed,
but as creators of the future.
To see waste
not as something to throw away,
but as something that can become possibility.
And to see food
not simply as a commodity,
but as a human right,
a source of dignity,
and a foundation for thriving communities.
We must move
from extraction to regeneration.
From exclusion to inclusion.
From surviving to thriving.
From doing things for communities
to building solutions with them.
Because the people closest to the problem
are often closest to the solution.
I want a food system
where a woman can own the land,
own the business,
own her income,
and have a voice in decisions
that shape her future.
A food system
where climate action creates livelihoods,
where farming restores rather than depletes,
and where no child’s future
is determined by the circumstances of their birth.
I carry my sister’s memory with me.
But I also carry hope.
Hope that what once broke us
can become what drives us.
Hope that a seed planted in difficult soil
can still become something beautiful.
And every day, through WomenGro,
we plant those seeds.
Because I believe:
When a woman grows, a family grows.
When a family grows, a community grows.
And when communities grow together,
we can transform the future of food.”
Warmly from our hearts from Buthan,
Your sisters Marie-Antoinette & Elise