Hi, my name is Karabo, and I recently started work as a permaculture project manager at a community development organisation, iThemba Projects. The organisation is involved in promoting and supporting ECD activities at primary schools and pre-schools in Sweetwaters, which is a semi-rural township, close to Pietermaritzburg which is on the eastern part of South Africa.

The Food Gardens project is a new project at iThemba, which started in April this year. The project is establishing school vegetable gardens, using permaculture techniques in fifteen schools, spread across the Sweetwaters Community, and training 30 teachers from these schools in the skills necessary to take care of the gardens. In addition, through iThemba’s existing life-skills programme, the project is educating children on the importance of the environment, and how best to interact with it, in sustainable ways. The project will also see the establishment of a nursery in the community, at the Community Centre which is currently being built. Through these initiatives, the project aims to address the nutritional and skills needs of the school communities, impacting the lives of approximately 3000 children, as well as respond to the significant levels of environmental degradation in the area.