The Raphael Centre teamed up with Non-Profit Organisation (NPO) Feeding the Self to assist a variety of Joza-based community projects with their gardening.
The Raphael Centre teamed up with Non-Profit Organisation (NPO) Feeding the Self to assist a variety of Joza-based community projects with their gardening.
They helped out at a myriad of locations, from rehab centres to daycares.
Feeding the Self focuses on providing food security, education and community development through the simple ingredients of land, food and seed.
The intention is to get a bunch of different organisations in Grahamstown connected through a joint project that is not driven by politics said the Director of the organisation Chirag Patel.
Feeding The Self began with a project designed to make education accessible through presenting natural science, maths, life orientation and language activities using the garden as a classroom in February 2011.
“The intention of the project is to teach academic content in the garden. The core of the project teaches maths, natural science, life orientation and language with lesson plans designed through the garden,” said Patel. It has developed a broad range of educational and environmental improvement and support activities since then.
Patel spoke to Grocott's Mail about Feeding the Self’s latest project, Thirteen13. The project aims to create a central database, marking presence and contact forum for small local NGO’s to allow them to work and market themselves more effectively. This will allow greater efficiency for the NGOs in their community projects.
“A lot of the problem in South Africa is that although there are plenty of resources, skills, expertise and infrastructure, they just aren’t connected.
NGO’s need to connect together more effectively,” said Patel. Feeding the Self aims to revisit the gardening locations to implement the next phase of their plan in the next coming weeks.
