Mayor donates vegetable seedlings to the women of Ndindani community
Mopani District Municipality’s Mayor Pule Shayi handed vegetable seedlings and fertiliser to a group of women farming in Ndindani village outside Giyani.
The village is the first to have running water inside their homes from the municipality’s water reticulation project, also known as Giyani Water Works. The mayor donated 3000 tomato, onion, and spinach seedlings. “We know that you don’t have water every day due to a weak connection at the main plant, but on the days you get water you must put it to good use,” he said urging residents to grow crops in their backyards. “Make sure that you have a small backyard garden so that you have a tomato or onion to use in your kitchen,” he said.
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“You need to stay healthy, and one of the things that can help you achieve that is by growing your own food. “As a government, we realise how important it is to ensure food security, hence today we brought seedlings to help women in this community grow their food,” he said. The Ndindani Community Care Centre, which provides meals for children whose families are too poor to feed them adequately, is one of the women’s projects that benefitted from the seed donation. Their leader, Nurse Maswanganyi, expressed their gratitude, stating that it will significantly help to feed hungry children.
“Getting fresh vegetables has always been a problem for us. “We tried planting in the past to supplement the food that we cook for underprivileged kids but was unsuccessful because the area was dry and we did not have enough water for irrigation,” she said. She appealed to Shayi to ensure the village gets water every day to do irrigation. “With more water available, we will be able to grow enough food to feed all the children and ourselves, we ask that restrictions be eased so we can have water here every day,” she said.
