Every year on July 18, Nelson Mandela International Day, millions of people across the world volunteer 67 minutes of their time to help people less fortunate than themselves.
Nelson Mandela International Day was launched via a unanimous decision of the United Nations General Assembly on 18 July 2009. It was inspired by a call Nelson Mandela made a year earlier, for the next generation to take on the burden of leadership in addressing the world’s social injustices. At the time Mandela uttered the motivational phrase: “It is in your hands now”.
The Management team at The Devon Valley Hotel joined hands with Stellenbosch360 and assisted with the building of the first sandbag house at the Heart Capital Kayamandi Foodpods hub.
Stellenbosch 360 recently donated a Sandbag House towards the Heart Capital Kayamandi Foodpods hub. The hub is an inspiring place making it possible for locals to grow and sell fresh, organic vegetables by providing the infrastructure, training and support they need to start and run urban-agri businesses. Stellenbosch 360’s Sandbag House will provide a home for the security guard overseeing the garden.
The team spent their 67 minutes filling the sandbags while other teams started painting the house in traditional African colours.
View pictures of the team here.
Read more about the Heart Capital’s initiative
Published on 31 March 2014 by News24.com
Growing food from a crate – Food insecurity is a contentious and growing issue in Africa and particularly in South Africa, one company is changing the way we think about growing food especially in poor areas. FoodPods is a social enterprise that operates as a micro-business to help disadvantaged settlements in and around Cape Town. In collaboration with Shift Stellenbosch the project is aiming to begin its first market hub in the Kayamandi Township.
FoodPods specifically drives the idea of training and hiring entrepreneurs in communities to grow and sell fresh fruit and vegetables that are organic and that will be sold in their communities. The main aim is to provide fresh vegetables to disadvantaged communities using innovative methods and this is why the project has been honoured as an official World Design Capital Cape Town 2014 Project So far the project has been operating in Khayelitsha and Philippi. What, makes the project innovative is how FoodPods grows its produce. In order to overcome poor soil quality, the organisation plants their seedlings into “crates” that are lined with a porous fabric and packed with a special mixture of soil and organic compost. Each crate holds between six and twelve seedlings. This system according to the project eliminates the need for laborious soil preparation, preservation and maintenance.
The project also highlights its employment initiative, growers are trained and selected from the communities they live and work in. Another one of the aims according to the organisation is to create market hubs within townships that will act as a centre for growing the produce and also where the produce will be sold. The project in Kayamandi will hopefully create six permanent jobs, produce and sell 9 072 bunches of vegetables per month and contribute to long-term food security in Kayamandi.