Community Gardens and Neighborhood Care Points

“2009 looks set to be another busy year…”

In 2008/2009 we continued monitoring the 8 school gardens which were set up in conjunction with UNICEF.

The communities’ response to a comprehensive practical/theoretical training package for backyard gardens spanning 12 months was an overwhelming success.  90% of our participants had flourishing gardens at home, which had been well maintained throughout the year. 
A combination of trench gardening and permaculture were used in training 30 participants in
Northern Hhohho Region, in conjunction with Vusumnotfo and Gardenafrica.

28 participants graduated at Lobamba Lomdzala, including skills on plant and fruit tree propagation, pruning, organic sprays, companion planting and compost making. 

2007 - A little history...

We have continued with our community demonstration trainings providing people with the skills and confidence to set up and manage small backyard trench gardens with the minimum of cash, water and time; all precious commodities for many rural families in Swaziland.

Under this program we trained 20 US Peace Corps volunteers and 40 Swazi’s from their communities in two different workshops plus 56 Rural Health Motivators (community level public health workers) in two further workshops. Recent follow up meetings have revealed that 100% of the health workers made gardens at their homes and 45% have worked with other families to establish gardens. All participants in this program are given basic tool kits, seeds and seedlings to get their gardens started.

We have embarked on a number of new partnerships this year. The most significant being a national program led by the Ministry of Education and UNICEF focusing on disadvantaged schools in Swaziland. We have been establishing school gardens with students and teachers and providing training on maintenance and management of the garden. The aim is a very simple but valuable one; to enable the school to grow vegetables for the school kitchen.

The school kitchen is for many primary school age children the only regular cooked meal they receive. The gardening project has enabled these schools to grow vegetables for themselves, developing new skills in organic gardening and reducing dependency on relief food aid.
In 2006 four school gardens were established with a total enrollment of 1400 students.

Some of the feedback from our courses sums up what makes this work so special:
“I am going to be able to grow my own vegetables”
“I now know about the nutritional benefits of vegetables and how to grow them”
“I will be able to produce vegetables to eat and to get a little bit of money”
 “I have received knowledge of how to sustain my life”
“I will now grow my own vegetables because I’ve got the knowledge”

2008 looks set to be another busy year in the gardens of Swaziland...We’ll keep you posted!

Shifting the focus…
In 2007 the agricultural division of Moya Centre developed new programmes to broaden its reach using the lessons learnt over the last 6 years. Consequently, the processes we employ focus on sustainable organic garden training in two main areas: primary schools and homesteads.

Training directly within communities continues but the focus of the programme has shifted from shared community gardens located at “Neighbourhood Care Points” (NCPs), to individual homestead gardens.
To achieve the programme aim of establishing and maintaining backyard gardens to enhance food security and nutrition at a family level, experience illustrated that the project was more effective when implemented directly within homesteads with knowledge being more actively shared within the extended familial culture.
Successful trainees are equipped to maintain year round productive gardens producing food for home consumption, generating a small income and serving as role models in their communities. 
The small financial benefits of a backyard garden have been proven to enable the sustainability of the projects whilst also providing much needed nutritional supplement.

The programme has grown organically in response to experience gained from working within the four regions of Swaziland and to a changing socio-economic environment. According to statistics released by NERCHA in 2007, 39.2% of the population of Swaziland is HIV positive. This socio-economic environment combined with an increasingly austere climate in which Swaziland faces severe drought and food shortages, makes Moya Centres’ role and response increasingly pertinent.

2001-2006 Gardening Project Brief History