A growing start for the community of Toekies

A new and exciting green adventure has started at Women Against Women and Child Abuse (WAWA) centre in Toekomsrus.

On Saturday, 10 October, WAWA in partnership with IThemba Projects and Food For Thought launched the Grow Mama Gardens at the WAWA centre.

According to Portia Mahlobo, founder of iThemba Project, the project started as a result of seeing moms, their families and communities go without food in South Africa.

Our main focus is to help moms in the community who have young children, as well as moms who are undocumented, vulnerable families as well as the youth,” said Portia.

IThemba Project currently assists over 3 000 families in need and six shelters, of which WAWA in Toekomsrus is a part.

“We understood from the start that it was critical that we create sustainable models and have the moms be part of their own solutions. So we partnered with Ubuntu Project not only to start 100 Grow Mama Gardens but also to start a seedling business right in their own homes,” said Portia.

According to Portia, they launched their Grow Mama Gardens with the aim to assist their moms feed their families , become skilled and have an income from their own seedling business.

She added that every mom receives basic agricultural training, seeds, seedlings, compost and gardening materials to start them off.

According to Enrique Bhana, manager of WAWA, their communities need to take ownership of their own sustainable food systems.

“We need to be part of creating food systems that deliver food security and nutrition for all in such a way that the economic, social and environmental bases to generate food security and nutrition for future generations are not compromised,” said Enrique.