Our flagship garden is into its 3rd successful year on the premises of Sediba Thuto Primary School in Mapetla Soweto. Over the past 3 years, Boikanyo has nurtured, supported , mentored, provided training, garden tools, compost, seeds, seedlings, an irrigation system and secured our garden with a sturdy fence. Our involvement with the school and greater community has gone beyond the borders of the garden fence. A new principal Nomahlubi Xaba has recently been appointed at the school and she is very supportive of the garden. Vegetables from our garden continue to supplement the existing school feeding programme.

Our garden is one of those selected to be part of the STAR Newspaper’s Teach Project. This has resulted in monthly garden training being provided since February 2015, under the guidance of a gardening consultant from Cape Town – Brian Joffin. We are proud to see that some of our volunteers are taking more ownership and responsibility. Sarina has taken to keeping detailed records of what is planted, harvested and sold and her records show that over the past 3 months , there has been a small but gradual increase in sales from the garden. These sales are now covering some of the running costs of the garden itself. Gogo Elizabeth arrives every day with a smile on her face and is such a dedicated hard worker. She is respected by all the younger members of the team . Winnie has been with us from the beginning and remains a vocal and active member of the team. Paul has taken on the responsibility of irrigation . Nondumiso thankfully returned to the garden, following many months of poor health. She has proved to a be a tremendous skilled asset and under her guidance, the team are now busy planting as many beds before the cold of June and July sets in.

The most exciting step has come about since the beginning of May. As the NGO, our vision from the start was to provide a foundation of support, skills and mentorship but ultimately to hand the running of the garden over to the volunteers. Our volunteers feel that they are confident with the training received and are willing to manage the garden without the weekly visits and physical help from Gayle and Marilyn. For the next 6 months, we envisage that Gayle and Marilyn – representing Boikanyo The Dion Herson Foundation, will continue to mentor and support the volunteers on a monthly basis instead of weekly visits. Sadly, the NGO is not in a financial position to sustain the running costs of Sediba Thuto garden indefinitely. As an NGO we are constantly trying to raise funds to support our projects. One of those projects is to purchase a vegetable tunnel , which we feel would be a tremendous asset as it would afford us with another means of bringing in income. We have identified that there is a demand ,in our own garden as well as from many community gardeners in the vicinity, to purchase affordable seedlings. As there are no nurseries in the vicinity, we envisage using the tunnels to grow seeds into viable seedlings which can then be sold for profit.  

Now that our SedibaThuto Garden is up and running relatively independently, we are thrilled to report that we have embarked on our 2nd garden at Othandweni Children’s Home in Soweto. ( see facebook for photos) In April we invited Barnabas and Nicol , 2 committed and passionate gardeners from the home, to join our monthly training course. On Thursday 14 May Boikanyo , assisted by student volunteers visiting from the USA, helped Barnabas and Nicol implement some of the skills learned at our training day. Our NGO endeavours to work with the Othandweni team to ensure their garden will flourish , so that more produce can be grown for the home’s kitchen.

From our interactions with the Different Foundation and Different.org, we have come to appreciate the great task and importance of social media. We do our best to post updates so keep following us on Facebook [Boikanyo , The Dion Herson Foundation] and on twitter [@boikanyo_ngo].

With love

Marilyn and Gayle