Farmers of the Future: Empowering Unemployed Youth

The Sasekile Gardens originally started in June 2017 and the first vegetables were ready to be harvested in September 2017, bringing out 41.4 kilo of beetroots, spinach and green pepper. The gardeners were able to sell parts of their crop to locals, generating income for themselves and their families. The project has successfully completed Phase One and is now moving into Stage 2, which is about developing partnerships with local businesses in order to generate a stable income for the gardeners. One business is already using the project as a market source for organic vegetables which is the staff kitchen crew and volunteer accommodation of African Impact. We hope to establish more partnerships soon in order to lead the project towards the third phase, called Farmers of the Future.

We are hoping to receive some support in regard to tools and equipment as well as to install an irrigation system for the garden. At the moment we are still using all the equipment from the school on which property the project is located. Also, the water and the water hose are being used from the school, as we don’t have an own water tank yet.

In order to get businesses interested in our projects, we created small self-made baskets which we filled with vegetables from the garden and some flyers and information on the gardeners for people to read. So far, we were able to distribute 9 baskets to 9 different businesses.  We would not be where we are today without all of our donor’s support and encouragement. We are looking forward to fundraising for Phase Two and taking the garden to the next step, a step which would not be possible without continued support.