by Asemahle Zoko

The Mission of the Province of Southern Africa is the 5 T’s; ‘Tell, Teach, Transform, Tend and Treasure’. Our local parish has a gardening project aimed to align with this mission and our Diocese of Natal’s mission of being ‘Christ Centered and growing spiritually’, all whilst taking measures to reverse the effects of climate change on the church and the world around us.

The gardening project was developed in 2019 with the intent of addressing needs that arise as a result of climate change, such as; poverty, unemployment and malnutrition of people. It began as a thought brought to the attention of the parish council in our church and that idea turned into an action. This is how we began to ‘Tell’. Our gardening project is currently being operated by a team of 8 members; 3 of which are females and 5 of which are males and whose ages’ range from 30-60 years. The team is led by a lady in her 60s. 

Not only has the project grown larger than expected and into multiple divisions but it also made use of the ‘Reduce, Reuse, Recycle’ rule of environmental care. The more the garden grows the more it exposes ways to not be financially straining to the church in using resources such as water, the seeds and all things costly. A ‘Jojo tank’ that was unused for a while is now mounted and collects rain water that is used to water the garden. This act is a small aspect of ‘Transforming’ as it teaches us how to utilize equipment we think is not going to be effective anywhere.

The results of the garden in its developmental phases caught the attention of many people. The more people saw the results of the project, the more interested they became and this invited more helping hands. The garden helps feed a lot of people now, both in and out of our parish including an orphanage nearby. Some of the volunteers are not even people from our parish but people passing by, caught by the beauty of the gardens. People’s dignity has been restored through job creation and ending hunger. This is how we have been able to ‘Tend’ to the people and the land by nurturing people’s needs and nurturing the soil itself.

The project now has sub divisions under it with different age groups involved, such as; the ‘YET’ (Young Environment Team) made up of the youth members of our parish aging from 5-25 year olds and the ‘Umusa ‘: another project in a school nearby that focuses on the Grade R pupils who attend there. The purpose of involving us as young people and children is to ‘Treasure’ young minds, and also learn from them whilst tackling malnutrition in the young.

I talked with some of the garden assistants, I discovered a lot. At first, they “were not sure” exactly what it is they would be doing: whether they would be gardening and getting paid like regular jobs or just being asked to volunteer. The more they worked in the garden, the more they realized exactly how involved they would be and how much of a treasure they are. And what importance and value they were adding to the little children by teaching them their way around the garden and the importance of having fresh foods filled with vitamins.

The gardening project has “transformed their lives for the better”. Some of the gardening assistants have been on the church premises since 2017. It has been able to restore their dignity, keep them occupied and skilled as well as putting food on their table. Sharing the food with them is a way the project treasures the garden assistants. The gardening assistants had a lot to share and were enthusiastic about working in the garden. There was nothing that they labelled as difficult except their current challenge about how much more they wanted to plant but they had little space. It has become a true passion for them.

There were plenty of lessons from the garden. From having to make compost from scratch to the methods of planting different plants at certain ground depths and the importance of spacing between the plants. The most valuable lesson however was the impact of the gardening project on their lives as a whole. What they learned, they shared with family members back in the village. One of the gardening assistants said that her children had even started to take care of the garden at home themselves, and were eager to update her every time the seasons changed and they had changed the foods they were planting.

Gardening is a source of life to many people. I learnt that those who built up the courage to ask government for permission to use vacant areas of land were allowed to do so as long as they showed enthusiasm and were dedicated to it. This has encouraged people to get up and have something to do even whilst unemployed. In a world of high unemployment rates, people can use projects such as the gardening project to keep themselves occupied and learn new skills or improve their current ones.

The gardening project continues to grow. I’m proud to be a part of it.

Interview:

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