SEED
Context
Introduction
Latest Project News
Progress Summary
SOIL FOR LIFE
Context
Introduction
Latest Project News
Progress Summary
RHODES PARK
Context
Introduction
Latest Project News
Progress Summary
LOTUS GARDENS
Context
Introduction
Latest Project News
Progress Summary
 
SEED - Context


Apartheid marked the beginning of the growth of population of the Cape Flats. At first people of mixed racial origin were moved out of Cape Town. Since then rural black people searching (often vainly) for employment have swelled their numbers.

Most people live in overcrowded conditions, many in shacks, and unemployment rates are estimated to be between 50% and 90%.

The terrain is windswept, the soil resembles and often is sea sand; an environment not conducive to cultivation.

SEED (School's Environmental Education and Development), a registered non-profit organization, has grown out of the harsh Cape Flatsand has focused primarily on primary schools since 1998. SEED works at transforming learning environments through Permaculture.


Clapham Common Jabula, 2005
Housing on the Cape Flats


The benefits of the Organic program are:

  • Gardens are living learning laboratories for the delivery of Outcomes Based Education.
  • Permaculture food gardens provide nutritious food for school children (1.5 mil children age 1-9 suffer from malnutrition).
  • School environments where waste is managed, water is conserved and soil is enriched are cleaner and healthier. · Gardening as a metaphor for social change, learners realize the potential they have to affect their environments.
  • Fresh, organic food increases awareness of the positive impact of good nutrition on health, especially with regard to HIV/AIDS.
  • The gardens have led to a range of additional outreach projects like teaching other schools, parents and community members how to develop their own Permaculture food gardens.
  • Garden-based entrepreneurial projects employ community members and ensure the sustainability of gardens

Thatu has committed to fund one school through the first year of the Organic Classroom, and hope that we may continue our support into the subsequent two years.