On February 5, the Westbury Youth Centre in partnership with MashUp Community Development held a Volunteer Day in the centres garden.
According to organisers, it was a day filled with cleaning, planting, networking, chilling, jamming and partaking in cooking demo’s courtesy of Johannesburg Culinary and Pastry School (JCPS).
“You know that in the Kasi, we always want people to come and do things for us like we don’t have hands. So, we are trying to encourage active citizenship through volunteering,” said Reginald Botha, the Organizational director of MashUp.
The main partnership for the day was between MashUp and JCPS. According to Botha, it is a very symbiotic partnership because the chefs need to know where food comes from and they also get to understand what it takes to grow the fruits and vegetables.
“Our youth also has no clue on where food comes from so this provides both parties to learn about the entire process of food. The next level of this initiative is to allow our students to start planting and then eventually receiving the harvest.
“Today is phase one for our students so it’s only cleaning the garden. We are planting seeds of social change, social development in the youth’s life,” said Botha.
Chef Airis Johnson who is the 2017 Winner of the American show ‘Chopped’ was present and was actively working with the students from the JCPS in the WYC garden.
According to Botha, the idea was to cook in the garden but due to timing, the idea had to be scratched. About a hundred people attended the event.
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Video by: Janice Beckett
The morning started off with games and performances from the youth as well as from Dafunc. The centre runs a youth development programmes where the youth attends computer classes, call centre course and a life skill programme.
According to Botha, these students are now required to spend one hour per week in the garden. Other parties at the event were Portias1stop Events, the Westbury Local Drug Association Committee, Kofifi Gardening and Landscaping, Sophiatown Youth Desk, St Johns Eye Clinic and representatives from Kofifi FM.
