Home food security and lack of proper nutrition are major issues for many families in our community. Thanda Community Assistance is addressing these problems by helping families establish home vegetable gardens. It is Thanda’s hope that families will be able to enhance their diets with nutritious foods and sustain themselves by the work of their own hands.
Thanda After-school’s Community Assistance Program began the first round of sustainable home gardens in March of 2009. Thanda’s Community Assistance Coordinator, along with the Construction and Agriculture teacher, instructed seven families in starting home gardens. Thanda facilitates a method of planting small, moister bed gardens, also known as door sized gardens. This garden method requires the use of raw materials available near every rural home and is also organic. The first garden group successfully worked together to plant seven gardens in the course of two weeks. We have found community members from grannies to teenagers willing to learn gardening and participate in garden groups. We expect to see fully grown cabbages, spinach and green peppers in just two months!
Thanda Community Assistance continues to meet with the gardening group to monitor the progress of the home gardens, expand the group’s knowledge on gardening, and lead workshops on business skills, life skills, HIV/AIDS, and other health issues.
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Home Vegetable Garden Project Pictures |
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In mid-2009 Thanda will launch a local sewing project to train local community members in sewing items that can be sold for profit. The sewing project will train locally unemployed individuals in sewing school uniforms, aprons, clothes, and other products that can be sold to support themselves. Thanda will also do workshops with the sewing project on basic life skills, health, nutrition, business skills and HIV/AIDS education.
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