IDEX Program Officers, Kat and Vini are on field visits in South Africa to research groups IDEX could support through our catalyst grants program.

Abalimi Bezekhaya is just 30 minutes outside of the center of Cape Town. Abalimi Bezekhaya, is working to improve sustainable food production and environmental greening in the townships of Cape Town. Their focus is to provide skills development through training and support people and organizations that wish to practice organic horticulture and micro farming. Abalimi Bezekhaya means "the farmers of home" in Xhosa.

We visited a community garden managed by mainly elderly women, who are members of VUFA – a black women-led urban farmers association in South Africa called Vukuzenzela Urban Farmers Association. On 5,000 hectares of land, 5 elderly women and 1 man are running this community garden. The vegetables are not just for their own consumption, but also to bring in an income when sold at market.

Since beginning to grow their own vegetables the women have seen incredible health benefits. Most importantly, they have been in such good help they haven't had any need to see a doctor.

VUFA has implemented a challenging recruitment process. To demonstrate their commitment to the group women must volunteer with the group for one year, before being asked to join. Many of these elderly women have a lot of time on their hands and enjoy fully being in the garden. But it's been harder to capture the attention of young people.

At the Abalimi office, we met Christina Kaba, the chair of VUFA. Christina came to Cape Town from Mpumalanga and started working with Abalimi in 1989. Christina became a strong promoter of women growing their own home gardens (tree nurseries) in the townships. It is her goal that VUFA can provide a platform for a unified voice to be showcased at the government level to represent all urban women farmers.

Christina invited Vini and me to visit Khayelitsha, a township about an hour away from Cape Town. Here, the community groups are not only developing gardens, but many of the women are initiating for sewing projects or running a soup kitchen together. Abalimi has played a key role in supporting VUFA with marketing their vegetables, but VUFA members now want to be trained in management and bookkeeping skills so they can learn to stand up for themselves and run VUFA by themselves.

We visit the community garden that Christina started long ago in Khayelitsha. It is close to where she lives, and now has 10 women taking care of it. On one side is the garden they grow vegetables for market as a group, and on the other, each woman has their own small plot of land to grow food for self-consumption and to sell to people in the township.

Christina introduced Nokwanda to us. She had trained Nokwanda in how to run a community garden, in turn another 8 women have bee trained to grow vegetables. Even more, Nokwanda invites other people in the township a 4-day training workshop so the participants can start a garden at their homes. The group will follow-up with them for the next two years.

VUFA is very community minded and works in a number of ways to share their garden and vegetables. Children in primary school are taught about growing vegetables and where their food comes from. Young people in tertiary education are encourage to do internships at the garden. VUFA also gives away a portion of their vegetables to disability and HIV programs plus they have plans to start a hospital gardens.

The women were kind enough to have cooked a fresh traditional dish made from the vegetables of the garden pronounced "imifino" a mixed of spinach, cabbage, green peppers and green onions. It was both delicious and left me a wonderful feeling to know where my food came from, and that it was fresh from the earth and not been processed in any way.

Labels: catalyst grants, South Africa, Sustainable Agriculture

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