Our Gardening Project
29 June 2022 | Shannen Harte
Our gardening project run by our dedicated gardening team has opened many new opportunities for the members of our community to learn such valuable skills. Growing our own fresh fruit and vegetables has enabled us to provide for the community and in turn, allow our community members to start up their very own gardens from the skills they have gained from the project. Every week many long hours are put into the maintenance of the garden and crops, ensuring the project's sustainability.
As most of you know, we have been blessed with the most beautiful garden, thanks to our loyal partners at Ethembeni Cripple Care School, we have been able to grow the most awesome fresh organic vegetables for use in our kitchen as part of our feeding scheme. It has always been our goal to generate employment through skills development for our garden team, we are pleased to say that this dream is starting to become a reality. We have begun selling our fresh produce to well-known stores like Food Lovers Market, Dunbar Spar and Camperdown Spar, generating income for our garden team while providing them with valuable skills that they can pass on for generations to come.
During these difficult times, we have had to make provisions for fundraising on our own, our garden has enabled us to begin to do this. What is most exciting is that we have been given more land from Ethembeni Cripple Care School to extend our garden even further, in turn, this has given us the opportunity to take on additional garden volunteers, giving them an opportunity to earn a stipend and receive a food parcel each month.
It is our goal to generate sustainable income & employment for our volunteers by means of our garden project. With the covid pandemic affecting many charities and businesses, we have had to adapt to the challenges that have come with it. In any business or organization, there are cost factors involved that can and will affect the success of projects like these. We currently have a team of 17 volunteers in our garden each receiving a food parcel in return for their hard work and dedication. Out of the 17 team members, 14 of these members are ladies from within the community. We would love to be able to empower them further by means of a small stipend to show our appreciation. Then there also comes the maintenance of the garden which is an ongoing task. We must purchase seedlings, plants, compost and other items needed to run our garden successfully.
With the addition of the land donated by Ethembeni Cripple Care School, we have been able to expand our gardening team by a further 15 volunteers of which 10 fall under our youth skills development programme. Giving these young people the necessary skills, practical training and experience needed to go out into the world and most importantly become employable/self-employed.
