The Tladi Clinic has a community garden and kitchen on it’s property. It is a pilot project to feed the sickly, providing nutrients they need to recover!
Tladi Clinic in Soweto is the first of many to come! The clinic is home to a new idea, the community works on the vegetable garden and the garden provides a soup kitchen with ingredients for nutritious meals.
Every Monday to Wednesday the Tladi Clinic starts to serve a nutritious meal from around 9am. They do this as many people leave home too early in the morning to eat. Most are having to take medicines with food and instead are skipping their meds to be at the clinic.
“The ARVs and Tuberculosis treatment many of them take cannot be taken without food. For a population who cannot afford a meal or who must wait for hours for treatment without access to food, this makes compliance a challenge and an obstacle…they simply don’t take their medicine. This also leads to a social problem where resistant tuberculosis strains develop because people are not able to take their medication in a consistent way.”
The Tladi Clinic decided to team up with the Sibahle Community Project to build the garden and from there see about getting the concept into other clinic’s around South Africa.
“Our plan is to grow the project, give other clinics mentality and knowledge of making the same project. Giving other clinics vegetables would not help, but knowledge is power as they can grow their own vegetables at any scale they want,” – Calvin Makhele, Community health worker and garden manager at the clinic.
Most clinic’s have open land available to be cultivated. The clinic also encourages it’s patients to grow their own food at home. The Tladi garden includes beetroot, carrots, spinach, cabbage, sweet potatoes, rosemary, thyme, parsley, and fruits such as strawberries and gooseberries.
This is a brilliant initiative especially in the communities that need it most!
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