Garden Project
- Child
Aid Doornkop South Africa
The gardening project (called DAPP Gardening Club) of Child Aid Doornkop was
established late 1998. The main aim for the original gardening project was food
security for the members and their families. A project like this was (and still
is) very needed because there are people in the township who are literally
starving to death. Besides food security there are aims like establishing a
local Market (which is a benefit to the stability of the economical situation of
Doornkop) and the empowerment of the members (by giving them knowledge and
skills about, of course, gardening but also cooperation and basic (time)
management).
The idea when the project was established was that it would be coordinated for 2 years by international volunteers and after that by the committee consisting of members. When I took over the gardening project there were about 85 members and a committee of 4 persons, which in a township of approx. 80.000 is absolutely nothing. There were two main tasks for me when I started: expansion of the Gardening Club; and starting up small scale farming.
There is only so much you can learn about gardening and managing a small plot, small scale farming is therefore a natural progression from the gardening club. For the small scale farming we created a structure of how it was supposed to look like. There were applications written and we had meetings with the council of the province over land and money. Basically because of the bureaucracy it would take about a year before we are able to get a piece of land and the money. Hopefully it can start January 2001.
For the expansion we created
portfolios for the committee members to give them more responsibility. An
election for the committee was organised to get representatives of each block
(numbering 12) in Doornkop. The election itself was a great success and the
attendance was an absolute record. Unfortunately the problems started after
that. From half of December until late April (the end of my six months) there
was a unpredictable climate change, from heavy rain to burning sun back to heavy
rain again... In these months most of the gardens were totally destroyed, washed
away by the water or full of pests and diseases. This was quite disastrous for
the expansion plans. Most of the members were completely de-motivated and didn't
see the point in starting over again. So for me, from January up to April, it
was basically a case of visiting each and every member over and over again and
try to motivate them to continue with having a garden, explaining how important
it is not to give up and to think positive even with these circumstances that
you have no influence on. This was quite a hard task, although it might sound
simple. You walk around the townships, see how a family of seven lives in a
shack of 3m by 3m with absolutely nothing. And me, a wealthy European had
to tell them to be positive. This is probably the most difficult thing I have
ever done and it very often my heart broke seeing these people who have nothing
and you know that most of them will never get the chance to escape this life.
They are born there and they will die there!
Now I am back in wealthy Europe and sometimes I just want to scream. Everything
seems so useless that we are doing here, chasing a big career, trying to get a
bigger car than our neighbours. I will never forget the things I have seen and
learned from the people in the township. Because yes, I have learned tons, they
have nothing but they're such proud people, they're so warm, happy with what
they DO have. I think that we, the material fortunate ones, can learn lots of
them. We think we are fortunate because of our material wealth but I think that
they are the fortunate ones in the way they are as a person and as community. So
if we can throw our thick headed selfishness aside and put some effort in the
development of education,
infrastructure, living conditions etc. of the less material fortunate ones then
maybe, just maybe we can stand in their shadow.
Martin Overzet worked together with
the people of Doornkop, 1999-2000