Dear Friends of Golden Sunbeams
Even before our organisation was founded, we supported the wonderful Zelna, principal of our Kingdom Kids Edu-Care, in setting up a large vegetable garden on a fallow area next to the kindergarten. Thanks to effective management, the harvest in excess of personal requirements could be sold in the community.
We have already reported on the expansion and progress in many newsletters.
Then in September 2023 the great catastrophe: As a result of the storms with extremely heavy rain, the property was flooded and the garden was completely destroyed. At the end of the year we started building a stone wall that will keep out the water in the future in place of the fence that had been washed away, and used the winter months to plan the redesign of the garden.
Now we had the opportunity to start from scratch “on the green field”, because there was absolutely nothing left of the former garden.
Vicky Roper, the founder of the CHEAFRICA Foundation, has also been supporting Kingdom Kids for many years with her organisation, and she also appreciates Zelna’s commitment in cultivating this vegetable garden with mind, heart and hand.
That’s why she is the ideal partner for us and we are very happy that we were able to get Vicky to sponsor this complex project with us and help finance it.
Vicky and Britta decided to commission a landscape and garden planner to plan the new vegetable garden. On May 3rd we sat down together to work on the first draft and made a few changes.
Vicky Roper (left) and Karin Arbuthnot (right) discuss the first garden designs with Britta.
It was particularly important to Vicky and Britta that the planning was subsequently implemented by men from the Sir Lowry’s Pass township and not by a commercial gardening company. In this way, we create jobs and support the people in one of the poorest townships in our region.
Now we would like to introduce you to these four men who are supporting us in the implementation of our plans: Alex, Gideon, David and Jodas.
Even as a child, Alex would visit Zelna after school to help her with her gardening and earn some pocket money or a hot meal. When he finished school, he stayed with Kingdom Kids because, like so many other young people, he couldn’t find a job. Alex shares Zelna’s love of gardening and helps her with it, as well as in her soup kitchen and with small craft jobs. Zelna looks after him and supports Alex wherever she can. Zelna is like a mother to Alex and he is now part of the family. His passion for gardening is still great and that’s why he is happy and grateful that we are rebuilding the garden and that he can help us.
David Etson, another of Zelna’s brothers, has been living in Zelna’s backyard for 15 years and is also retired. He helps Zelna and her family whenever necessary. Zelna provided him with food and other essentials when he was unemployed. He also has no job at the moment and is happy that he can support Zelna and us with our garden project.
Zelna’s brother, Gideon Etson, is retired and has been supporting her in everything she does for a long time. Zelna says that Gideon can do anything and is always there for her when she needs help. Although he is retired, he still has to earn some extra money because most older people in the townships have no pension. Gideon is grateful that he can work for Zelna, that she provides him with hot meals and that we pay him a wage for his work, so that he can provide for his family. Gideon is an important, skilled and reliable helper for Zelna, who she can always count on.
Jodas Davids is a young high school graduate who is friends with Zelna’s son Gino and went to school with him. He is always there for Zelna and her family when they need him. Since Jodas’ family is currently unable to finance his tuition fees, he is unfortunately not able to study at the moment. Zelna says of Jodas that he is a very modest, intelligent, helpful and grateful young man and she is happy to be able to support him and his family a little in this way.
This hard-working team has now started building the fence around the garden based on our planning and with the materials we provided. The fence is also absolutely necessary so that the children and the many stray dogs cannot “walk” into the garden unattended, as this has always led to some crop failures in the past.
As the ground was only sand due to the massive flooding, we have already had new topsoil and compost delivered.
There are currently delivery problems with some fence elements, so we are not making any progress here at the moment. July and August brought us so much rain that we are a bit behind schedule.
We have already been able to deliver the first seedlings for spinach and cabbage. These will now be planted in the large beds. In the next few weeks we will then supply Zelna with further seedlings of various vegetables, as well as lettuce and herbs.
Zelna has also already planted some fruit trees: plum, peach and pear trees are now getting their first delicate blossoms and will hopefully soon be able to provide shade in the vegetable garden.
And this is how we planned the garden:
We started at the back with the “composting area”: where we built the new wall is the area for the compost.
In “Section C” large wooden boxes will be set up to plant special and sensitive vegetables in and thus protect them from snails and other pests.
In “Section B” small wooden boxes are being planned in which different types of vegetables, salads, fruits and herbs will be planted.
In the large open area, beds with spinach, broccoli, cauliflower and other plants that require a lot of space and are hardy will be planted.
Our principal Zelna is full of anticipation for her new vegetable garden. She can hardly wait to harvest the first vegetables and she thinks about the idea of reopening her soup kitchen.
While our team of four digs up the soil in the garden, sets up pillars and plants seedlings, the children “read” with great enthusiasm the books they received with the new book corner. This was sponsored by our partner organisation Masikhule. We would like to say a big thank you for this!
In our next newsletters we will certainly report on the progress of our work.
We would like to thank Vicky Roper, the founder of CHEAFRICA, who wants to bring this garden back to life with us.
If you would like to support this sustainable project – we would be happy to receive any donation. We would also like to take this opportunity to thank you again for your commitment, without which we would not be able to bring such a large project “into the field”.
We say goodbye for today and send warm greetings from Cape Town
Britta & Claudia