Coalition aims to help people grow
A group of individuals comprising a Mitchell’s Plain chef and hospitality lecturer Xen de Jongh, Steenberg herbal scientist Cindy Knowles, Wynberg creative strategist Marc Jacobs and Somerset West community farmer Shaurn Cairns have formed the seed2COMm UNiTY coalition to address food insecurity in vulnerable communities.
On Friday October 25, which was World Food Day, the coalition launched at the Mitchell’s Plain community health centre. It’s aim is to address food insecurity through sustainable, community-driven solutions, focusing on inclusive education and skills development.
seed2COMm UNiTY plans to establish 20 000 agroecological household food gardens over the next five years through a comprehensive network of community-driven food growers.
“Each household will have a growing area of up to 50m² and will contribute to a total of one million square meters of land dedicated to sustainable food production and education. To support this five-year vision, we will create more R800 million in value through funding, expertise and resources,” Mr Cairns said.
Since its inception earlier this year, they have has worked with 83 community leaders and residents from Mitchell’s Plain, including Strandfontein as growers.
Ms Knowles, who is also the founder of Community Safety Champions, said the coalition has been facilitating weekly training sessions.
“I will be facilitating the training along with Shaurn but will focus on the foraging, medicine and agro-processing aspects. We aim to eventually create entrepreneurs through our project, but will start off with gardening, then medicine and agro-processing, and move onto food entrepreneurship, sustainability and survival techniques,” Ms Knowles said.
Marc Jacobs, founder of weRproudly NPC, said the coalition plans to do more than teach people how to plant gardens.
“We want to empower communities to be active participants and owners in the circular green economy, which includes agripreneurship, medipreneurship and entrepreneurship so that they don’t just work in the economy but own it,” Mr Jacob said.
Mr De Jongh, who is from Mitchell’s Plain and runs iRoc, a non-profit company that finds work for children with disabilities in hospitality and tourism, said he is looking forward to training able-bodied and disabled people to work together and integrate sustainable food production practices into their households.
“I want to see the integration. Able bodied people have always been able to get work easier than others with disabilities. With our economy being what it is, I want to bring able-bodied and disabled people to together in the same training programme so that we can build stronger, self-sufficient communities,” Mr De Jongh said.