Vegetable Gardens Prove Fruitful in Grahamstown

A productive partnership has been forged between Galela Amanzi and Umthathi. Umthathi is a local NGO whose mission is to improve household health through increasing access to food, making effective and sustainable use of available resources and developing the skills necessary for improved livelihoods and self-sufficiency. One of their areas of focus is encouraging the development of school and community vegetable gardens. Galela is a student-driven organisation which aims to increase access to water and encourages people to stand up for their constitutional right to water.

Umthathi runs a training program at many sites in Grahamstown which allows Galela Amanzi to tap into sites that already have vegetable gardens, and are in need of water tanks. With constant access to water, the food gardens can be sustainable and people can start becoming more self-sufficient. By ensuring that the site has a community garden means that there is already a group of people who will be responsible for the rain tank and are committed to using it in the long term.

Umthathi has been Galela Amanzi’s most instrumental partner connecting it with Makana Municipality and ward councillors who play a vital role in the local municipality. Manager of Umthathi, Sicelo Dyira supports the project and has been particularly helpful in identifying future beneficiaries. They offer training, monitor their garden projects, and teach beneficiaries how to water the gardens effectively and efficiently using tank water. Umthathi is also responsible for providing seeds, gardening equipment and any other gardening tools necessary for the successful outcome of the vegetable gardens.

When asked about working in development in an under-resourced province, Abigail McDougall, vice- chairperson of Galela Amanzi, was candid. “Working in development is always about a mixture of success and failure: where we fail, we learn and try something else. We also try to tackle the problem from more than one angle, as opposed to just providing a material solution. To this end, we work to raise awareness of global, national and provincial water issues on campus and in Grahamstown, by facilitating communication between different parties interested in solving the problem of water.”

Organisations with positive solutions can make all the difference in a province which is still experiencing the ramifications of apartheid at the highest level. As such, Galela has received solid support from all the NGOs in the area working on basic human rights violations such as access to water and sanitation.

For more information on Galela Amanzi, go to: //amanzi.rucus.ru.ac.za/