Micro-farming among the poor Cape Town

Dear GlobalGiving Friends, here is a wonderful example of how community gardens can take over otherwise unused space. The Siyazama Urban Allotment Garden Association began in 1995 on 5000m2 of unutilised land under powerlines. Today it has expanded to three hectares involing 5 different community gardens , all of whcih are cultivated by surrounding community members. They all provide for their families but also sell surplus to the local community and via various marketing channels that place a premium on their produce.

The pic (selected attachment # 1 below} included herewith shows the extent of the gardens and their beautiful effect within the surrounding deset-like areas.

We hope you are inspired as much as we are by the progress made by the Siyazama Allotment Garden Association.

Best regards

Rob Small

Dear GlobalGiving Friends

COVID 19 has challenged us to find ways to support our target group (unemployed adults) that do not involve groups of people being trained. Thus we have had to suspend training courses during lockdown. But we managed to get permission to keep on providing our services on the ground non the less. Thus our garden centres remain open for individuals to come get manure and seedlings. Plus we have launched "manure runs", whereby we take manure and seedlings out into the far flung areas to service our target group (especially home gardeners) so that they dont have to come to our garden centres on public transport which would expose them to a higher risk of infection. The manure runs go out four times a week and reach approximately 50 gardeners on each run.

The gardeners pay a nominal amount of money to buy the manure, seed and seedlings which goes back into buying more manure and seedlings. Thus our home gardeners are enabled to continue planting fresh veg at their homes.

Your help make this possible and we thank you for our continued support during this challenging time