When you visit ‘Harvest of Hope’ for the first time you realise how little you know of what is happening in our communities. It is also a confirmation of how much really can be done to create jobs for many unemployed people and at the same time provide fresh organic produce to thousands of people in impoverished communities.
If you are in the Cape Town area, why not join Icologie on 25 January on their first field trip for 2011 to the Abalimi community gardens? You may remember we wrote a story on this worthy project in our first edition.
Details
Meet from 08:45 – 09:00 at the BP garage, corner Wetton Rd and Rosmead Ave, Wynberg. From there people will arrange car-share where possible. We will visit various gardens in Gugulethu and Nyanga and the pack shed in Phillipi. The field trip will end in Nyanga at 12:00 after which we will return to Wynberg again.
The tour is ‘no frills†so please bring sunhats, own snacks and refreshments and make sure to bring all-weather gear as well. As you know, the weather in our Mother City can be very unpredictable.
Depending on the availability, you might be able to buy some of the fresh, organic vegetables. The ‘Seed to Table†cookbook will also be on sale (R100). Please remember to bring some cash.
To book for this field trip, please complete the booking form at the bottom of this page.
Aims
Abalami assist individuals, groups and community based organisations to initiate and maintain permanent organic food growing and nature conservation projects as the basis for sustainable lifestyles, self-help job creation, poverty alleviation and environmental renewal. Abalimi means: ‘the Planters†in Xhosa, the predominant language of the workers at Abalami.
Boxes of freshly packed vegetables grown with love and care to the highest organic standards in the food gardens of Cape Town’s townships. 25 years ago Abalimi Bezekhaya planted a seed of hope. That seed grew into abundance, the abundance overflowed into a harvest of plenty, the overflow became ‘Harvest of Hope’, where the goodness can reach the homes of many more.
Abalimi is based primarily in township communities like Nyanga and Khayelitsha, where they encourage self sustainability and teach them to grow their own vegetables to feed their families. Organic vegetables are now grown in hundreds of gardens in the townships to sustain the communities. Abalimi works at any one time with over 50 community and institutional gardens and hundreds of home gardens. There is more than enough to feed the families and a growing excess which is sold locally or given away. Growers have little access to outside markets to sell their high quality produce.
Harvest of Hope has provided a new market for excess produce. By collecting from all the various gardens involved, making up extraordinary vegetable boxes and taking them to schools where parents collect them for their homes.
They also sell vegetables boxes to the public on a weekly basis and deliver to different outlets on a weekly basis. For more information visit their website.
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