From providing food for thought on issues of sustainability, to helping communities feed themselves, the Umthathi Training Project has had a great 21st year.
From providing food for thought on issues of sustainability, to helping communities feed themselves, the Umthathi Training Project has had a great 21st year.
This now legendary Grahamstown-based NGO was founded in 1992 to provide skills training to craft producers from local townships.
Soon, guided by its research into the training needs of the Eastern Cape, together with requests from local communities, Umthathi's focus flowered in new areas. By mid-1993 it had emerged as a dynamic new player in self-sufficiency training, including organic vegetable gardening.
Programme Manager, Michelle Griffith, is delighted at how many organisations Umthathi has trained since then.
"We started our training with schools, centres, clinics and hospitals including individuals, groups and civic movements."
She said different approaches are applied, depending on the circumstances.
In villages and rural places the community is already organised, but in urban centres cohesive groups have to be identified.
Most of those trained, still maintain their gardens and some even sell their products.
Ntozana Mafani is such a gardener, at the Linomtha Community Garden. She eats and sells from her garden, selling spinach for R5, onion for R1 and cabbage for R7.
"I use the money in buying seedlings, electricity and some other things that might be needed at home," she said.
Raphael Centre facilitator, Ntuthu Mxalisi, is another with high praise for Umthathi. The centre was trained in organic planting, producing nutritious food, and in hygiene.She says sometimes they cook for patients from vegetables produced in their garden.
Xola Mali, rural area organiser for the Masifunde Education Trust, says Umthathi's training was invaluable and has been successfully applied in rural areas like Glenmore. Mali hopes that Umthathi will continue its community training on organic planting for many years to come.
