Zero2Five’s heart ‘beets’ for Highway communities
Two fantastic vegetable gardens were installed at EDC Centres near Shongweni Dam to help create food security for children in need.
THE intoxicating scent of a freshly cooked chicken curry saturated the path to the Luthando Creché in Shongweni and its founder, Sindisiwe Ngcobo, was quick to greet me with an unforgettable opening line: “Can you smell that? That, my friend, is the smell of a curry made with fresh ingredients picked straight from our new veggie garden!”
The 42-year-old beamed with pride as she looked over the vast array of plump vegetables growing in a fenced off garden, donated by the Zero2Five Trust, that covers a sizeable portion of the grounds of the creché.
For the Zero2Frive Trust, food security begins in the backyard.
Its CEO, Julika Falconer, said the home-based and community gardens are a simple solution to improve access to nutritious food.
The NPO’s Growing Hope project seeks to provide 10 early childhood development centres with fully fenced and covered food gardens and practical, earth-friendly training to plant and sustain such gardens in 2021.
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Zero2Five instructed the very capable team from Imifino NPO to install the first two food gardens in the Shongweni Dam area.
Their team of experts have numerous years of experience when it comes to helping individuals, schools and communities implement adaptive, horticultural agriculture projects to strengthen food security and build sustainable livelihoods.
A bubbly Ngcobo exclaimed, “We are only looking after a few children now because of the Covid-19 pandemic as many parents are very scared to send their children out. The ones who are here will be having this curry for lunch and I am so excited!”
She opened the creché 11 years ago as she saw a need in the community and wanted to help out as best she could.
Last year she cared for more than 96 children and, when the pandemic hit, this number quickly declined as parents opted to keep their little ones at home.
“We look after orphan children, vulnerable children and a few of the young ones in my care have parents who are still in school themselves. Before this opened, there were many children found walking in the streets around Shongweni,” she said.
The children in her care range from nought to four years old and said the money she receives from parents doesn’t cover he monthly expenses but continues to persevere as the children come first.
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With the addition of the vegetable garden, which contains brinjals, tomatoes, lettuce, spring onions and more, the monthly savings this would create for the creché would only add up as time goes on.
“I just added in the brinjals and spring onion to the curry. This vegetable garden has helped us a lot as we now have a whole lot of fresh vegetables to add to our food and, as a non-profit organisation we do not get enough money in to cover our costs, so this is a big help,” said Ngcobo.
To add to her already busy schedule, Ngcobo has also taken on domestic work three times a week to help bring in extra income to cover costs.
Falconer said, “It was an eye-opener for our team during level 5 lockdown to discover how little home grown food we have in our poor communities. Without improved access to and consumption of nutritious food, more people could die of starvation and long-team effects of malnutrition brought by the coronavirus than the virus itself, especially our most vulnerable young children.”
To support the Growing Hope project, email Zero2Five at enquiries@zero2five.org.za.
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