One organic food garden planted on the Wellington School of Skill’s (WSOS) premises pulled many Drakenstein initiatives together to aid local patients fighting drug-resistant tuberculosis (DRTB).
The Val de Vie Foundation responded to a plea by NorSA Community Care and assembled a team from the WSOS, Western Cape Department of Health and Seed2Harvest to install a 330 m² organic food garden.
This would also serve as an educational offering for the school, with the potential to yield 180 kg of nutritious vegetables per month.
Crops harvested by role-players and learners alike can possibly feed DRTB patients facing the daily reality of swallowing at least 20 pills a day.
Clinical manager in the department of health Dr Rushaan Gaffoor explains why this garden would benefit drug-resistant patients suffering from the world’s most infectious killer diseases prominent in parts of the nation, such as the Western Cape.
“Struggling patients suffering from DRTB often prematurely abandon their treatment as they can’t always afford highly nutritional food to help digest such big dosages. Nutritional vegetables form a solid stomach lining that helps them keep all their medication down. It will also benefit as a general healthy dietary measure.”
Val de Vie’s Lorraine Hadfield introduced Wednesday’s launch of the garden as “a dream come true”.
“When the principal of WSOS, Graeme Cupido, and the school’s governing body were asked to partner in this project their answer was a resounding ‘yes!’. They offered a piece of land for the garden.
“Another organisation Seed2Harvest joined in and planted 15 of their revolutionary Organic Garden Starter Kits.”
The owner of Seed2Harvest, Shaun Cairns, told Paarl Post his business was happy to equip the project with these starter kits valued at R899 per box.
“I also call it concept boxes with 12 heirloom varieties of seeds with integrated pest management solutions, a three-month fertiliser programme and added bio-stimulants to keep improving soil fertility.”
Cairns said this starter kit is ideal for a fresh garden tended by those who need to learn the entire rigmarole of organic gardening.
“This kit will even allow one to grow veg in sand. It has a growing guide with a 12-week crop protection and fertiliser programme. All one needs do is follow it diligently every step of the way. It simply cannot fail – with maximum yield guaranteed.
“It is this concept of gardening that will literally take one from seed to harvest on schedule by simply doing what it tells one to do.”
Cairns has also committed his time on a bi-weekly basis to make sure the growing garden goes according to plan. In the meantime, he said, learners at the school will help to tend it with an educational programme.
In his speech Cupido mentions the school’s privilege to have been considered in this partnership.
“We’re humbled and privileged being the one of many schools on the way to Wellington, to be offered this opportunity. I immediately said yes, as a devotion to serving this community.”
He meant to say that they cannot change the town as a whole, “but we will make a difference.”
The crops harvested on their premises will be channelled through NorSA’s Newrest soup kitchen devoted to feeding their beneficiaries.
The community care centre’s programme manager, Petra Nel, expressed great gratitude on behalf of its 83 DRTB patients who receive monthly rounds of treatment.
She said: “Often our beneficiaries come to NorSA to collect their medication. Sadly, many of them return home after the added expense of travelling to and fro . . . returning home to little to no nutritional foods.
“We express our thanks to every role-player who helped make this a reality by strengthening the collective response of NorSA’s resources.”
