Children help plant trees on Arbor Day

QUEENSWOOD children with a team of volunteers from Garden Court South Beach (Tsogo Sun) planted six indigenous trees at Ethelbert Child and Youth Care Centre to celebrate Arbour Day.

The children had a great time getting stuck in with spades, buckets and watering cans which were donated by Garden Court.

“With plenty of nurturing, we hope that these trees will provide shade on the playground as well as in the Centre’s parking lot in the future,” said Gaylene Allen, Ethelbert Child and Youth Care Centre PRO.

“September has certainly been a gardening month at the centre as one of our child care workers, Sindy Makhanya, has also kept the children busy by cultivating a vegetable garden.

“Makhanya has been a passionate gardener since she was eight years old, she has been teaching the younger children about vegetable gardening for a few years, rubbing her enthusiasm, knowledge and passion off onto the children,” said Allen.

Ethelbert director, Vanessa Theophilus, said gardening was one of the life skills that children are taught at the centre.”We want our children to understand that vegetables do not originate from the fridge or the supermarket.” She said there was also a deeper and more subtle lesson being taught to the children, which is that with love, patience and nurturing, something beautiful will grow.

”Most of the children in our care are here because of abandonment, neglect and abuse which means they have had little or no experience being nurtured and loved,” explained Theophilus.

“I once read that a garden requires patience and attention because plants do not grow just to satisfy the whims of the gardener. “Plants thrive when care, time and love are invested in them. This is the same with children.

“At Ethelbert, we do everything we can to show the children that affection and kindness do not have a price tag, and that they have every right to be loved as much as those children who come from functional families,” she said.

To follow the progress of Ethelbert’s vegetable garden, people can like the Ethelbert Child and Youth Care Centre’s Facebook page.