Susan Law and Margery Povall spent a day in March visiting SEED school projects including two of 'our' schools. Our guide was Talfryn Harris, their very knowledgeable permaculturist.

SEED has had a major internal review of their work, and their detailed reports had told us not only of the achievements but also the challenges and their plans to overcome them. Two of the 12 schools are 'graduating' out of the three year programme this year, being now considered to be self sustaining. Both have set up herb nurseries in order to generate income.

Each month SEED's work focuses on a different subject, linked to those in the national curriculum. Their subjects include Wind, Trees, Medicinal plants, Nutrition and food security.

Heinz Park School which had been temporarily suspended from the programme because of uncertainty about the building, has at last got its long awaited proper school buildings which they were going to move into after Easter. So now the school garden can really go ahead. And as Soil for Life, another Cape NGO is going to be working with the existing community garden members, the two NGOS are looking forward to an innovative partnership in which they will share resources such as a nursery wherever possible.

At Kannemeyer School we met the energetic charismatic principal Ridwan Samodien once again. We saw their chickens being fed scraps from the pupil's left over sandwiches by enthusiastic children. And their gardens beutified by recycled plastic bottles filled with coloured water, one of their many innovative actions.

At Rocklands [soon to graduate from the programme] enthusiastic girls were weeding their part of a circular herb garden, which each grade will have their own part of.

And we were introduced to chicken' tractors' a novel way of fertilising patches. The chicken coops [which don't have wheels!] are rotated round the various plots. Endless ingenuity!

At Zanemfundo a group of girls was busily creating buckets of soapy water with which the boys were watering the vegetables in order to deter predators.

Apart from the 12 school programme, SEED is expanding its other educational activities. They have produced a follow up to their initial publication 'The Organic classroom' a resource for teachers of Grades 1-3. Their new publication is for Grades 4-6 'Growing the living laboratory' permaculture for environmental education. And their education programmes for teachers from all over the Cape Flats are expanding to elsewhere in the country.