Nurse’s Fruity Epiphany: How Mangos Became Medicine in Uganda

When newly minted nurse Francis Asiku arrived at the Yumbe District Health Center in northern Uganda, he carried a satchel of medicines—only to discover that many of his patients suffered not from treatable ailments, but from chronic malnutrition . On his way home one evening in 2011, he pedaled past mango trees dropping fruit faster than villagers could eat them. “I saw birds feasting on ripe mangos that were rotting on the ground, and wondered why my patients weren’t receiving that same nourishment,” he recalled .

From that moment sprang the Mango Project, a community-led initiative that harvests the twice-yearly mango bounty and preserves it in glass jars with boiled water and a dash of sugar. These jars—each brimming with vitamin C, A, potassium, and more—are delivered to clinics and refugee settlements, where they supplement children’s diets and help stave off stunting and other malnutrition-related conditions .

Fourteen years on, the project has:

• Preserved over 12,000 jars of mango during COVID-19 lockdowns.

• Planted 310 hybrid mango trees to ensure year-round resilience against pests and climate shifts.

• Expanded nutrition education programs across five districts, teaching families to balance mangoes with proteins, fats, and micronutrient-rich produce .

According to the Christian Science Monitor, one in four children in Uganda faces stunting from malnutrition—making local solutions like the Mango Project crucial in regions where refrigeration and supply chains falter.

Asiku’s model shows how empathy and ingenuity can transform a simple fruit into a lifeline. “Watching children smile as they eat my country’s sweetest gift reminds me that sometimes, healthcare begins in the trees,” he says. Today, Francis’s mango jars stand as proof that real medicine doesn’t always come in pills—but can grow right in our backyards.