A group has raised funds for their community to help establish food gardens in Knysna and boost food security.
Knysna, South Africa (09 February 2021) – We are pretty sure the buzz word of late 2020 into 2021 has become ‘Food Security’. After a year of people being reliant on food parcels and feeding schemes, many organisations have worked tirelessly to boost food security in the most desperate communities.
To boost food security means to provide the tools for people to feed themselves and become less reliant on food parcels and feeding schemes. One of the practical ways to do this is to establish food gardens or to provide the means for a community to install their own.
Education is also key which is why these initiatives also start at ground level in schools. Food Garden stories have been featured with great reach here on Good Things Guy, having shared just over 70 in the last year alone! One of those stories focused on a group of women in Knysna who decided to start an ‘adopt a garden’ initiative in September 2020.
Growing Upwards was created by a group of Knysna women who were moved to action through empathy for those who are struggling to eat nutritious meals on a daily basis. They worked to identify suitable leaders in the community who could be assisted and trained to establish and sustain a garden as a food source.
Working with donations from the local community, they hoped to establish these gardens in areas that had seen a decline in nutritional meals come breakfast and dinner time.
Since launching the project late last year, the organisation has played a role in providing five community gardens in Knysna and the surrounds. They have worked on partnerships with businesses as well as the public to reach such a great milestone.
The latest project has been their biggest and will be used to feed children at Early Childhood Development centres. It is proof that South Africans can make a massive change, one garden bed at a time!