Mhani Gingi | Community Gardens

“Use What You Have to Attract and Keep What You Need” – it is of utmost importance to utilize every possible available space to produce nutritious food. This practice has worked very well for Mhani Gingi and thanks to the generous support from Pick n Pay, it is being extended into communities via unused grounds at local schools, hospitals, prisons, and even office parks in South Africa.

By promoting better nutritional practices at all levels as well as programmes that enhance direct and immediate access to food by the neediest, Mhani Gingi places the emphasis on “Prevention is better than cure.” It is hoped that as school children and communities are taught how to produce and eat healthy food, more and more opportunistic diseases, caused by lack of nutrition, will be eradicated.

Mhani Gingi and ID Mhkize High School collaborated to create a vegetable garden with a sprinkler system which was donated by Pick n Pay Foundation. Soroptomist International Cape of Good Hope Club also donated sprinklers to Goodwood Presbyterian Church Social Care Garden and the garden at St Gabriel Catholic Church Social Care in Gugulethu. Old Mutual Group Schemes, Pollsmoor and Michells Plain Correctional Services also joined in, starting the Old Mutual School Gardening Initiative.

Donations from Soroptimist International Stratford on Avon Club, London, supported the creation of vertical gardens at Langa Cheshire Home for Disabled Adults.