The Goodness of Gardening

On Wednesday this week, I spent an inspiring and thought provoking morning with Rob Small of Abalimi Bezekhaya ('Farmers of Hope') in Cape Town.

Abalimi is an urban micro-farming organization operating in the townships of Cape Town. Abalimi teaches people how to create their own garden, grow - and potentially sell - their own vegetables, and feed their families.

Abalimi means "the Planters" in Xhosa, the predominant language among the target communities worked with. Through a series of programs, Abalimi helps to alleviate poverty (though increased food security and generation of jobs / income), empower communities and promote a better state of wellbeing. As Albalimi's newsletter (Sept 2009) states, this is often challenging work in communities where people are very poor and, in trying to survive, are, "often divided and disempowered, easily distracted and always looking for greener pastures."

However, almost 30 years since Albalimi began, it continues to support both home gardens, through providing people with training, advice, seedlings and manure to help establish their own gardens and also larger, community gardens. Through the home gardening projects, people gain more confidence and are able to move on and build themselves a new life.  

We visited two of the community gardens and met some of the farmers and gardeners, all working hard to tend the crops. Some of the produce from the community gardens is sold to the veg box scheme which supplies locally produced, reasonably priced, organic vegetables to customers in Cape Town. It also provides the farmers with an income and an incentive to keep farming!  As Rob explained, for these people, the garden is not just a 'nice to have', it is central to sustainability and poverty reduction. The gardens also provide an opportunity for community members to come together and to work together for both their individual benefit (through increased physical activity, improved healthy eating, social interaction, learning to run a business, etc) and for the greater good of the community (much of the produce is shared with community members).

Can you help?

It costs just £60 to establish one new township home vegetable garden or a new community market garden (including training, trees and follow up support). Please do consider a donation if you can support this fantastic work.

Want to know more?

You can view a CNN clip about Abalimi 's work, as explained by one farmer leader Christina Kaba here.

'We are Abalimi. We are the Farmers.' is a short documentary film about Albalimi made by American volunteer Matt Miller and Travis Blue. View it here.