Namibia
Kalahari Garden Project, Namibia
Support for the internally displaced San peoples in Namibia.
In partnership with the Global Diversity Foundation and The Eden Project, as well as local NGO, Komeho Namibia, the Kalahari Garden Project was established to support the internally displaced San peoples in Corridor, to promote and preserve traditional environmental knowledge, build nutritional health, and contribute to building the skills and opportunities necessary for creating a renewed sense of self-reliance.
The Challenge
The San once hunted and gathered for edible and medicinal plants on land that is now commercial or communal farmland. Boreholes on these farms have been responsible for lowering the water table, disrupting game patterns, and placing unforeseen pressures on bio-cultural diversity, with many of the plants and techniques used over thousands of years to manage these resources, now at risk of being lost to future generations. People who have been hunter/gatherers for thousands of years, have been forced to settle, without any knowledge of cultivation, resulting in extreme poverty and poor health.
Our Reponse
This project is working with schools and communities to assist them to feed themselves and their children, and to pilot indigenous gardens - researching and putting into cultivation species which are more culturally and ecologically appropriate.
The Project now has a total of 42 gardens spread between five villages. The majority of gardens are already yielding produce. The gardens are 10 x 14 metres and have strong, livestock-proof fencing and rows of tilled sand improved with dung and ash. Summer vegetables sown included tomatoes, kale, chilli pepper, pumpkin, squash, beetroot, carrots, watermelon and onions. Clementine, pomegranate and fig trees were also planted. Winter vegetables sown include Swiss chard, cabbage, cauliflower and carrots. Where water pressure is sufficient, the gardens are equipped with drip irrigation systems.
The Kalahari Garden Project is based on previous ethno botanical and anthropological research carried out in the area by project coordinator Hattie Wells, working with San represented NGOs, and the experience of partner organisations in rural development and dryland horticultural. The harvest and consumption data recorded in the past year suggests that diet has already been significantly improved, providing considerable hope that this population may be able to make a successful transition, for the future generation.
One participant, Ida Gei//amses, a San woman living in Post 17, Corridor, commented that
“Before the project we had no food and finding food was difficult. Now we can go into the garden and feed ourselves and our children, and we are no longer just sitting and waiting for the government to deliver food aid.”
Building Local Capacity
As well as providing solar pumps and water catchment tanks, water committees were established in each village to facilitate the management of water points in each area. Further resource-security training was provided to project staff (including Komeho) by GA with a view to improving facilitators’ abilities to develop adaptation strategies when working in arid regions. This two week training was an opportunity to bring our partner organisations together in Zimbabwe to share experiences at Fambidzanai Permaculture Centre.
The three local San who were trained under the project, will now be employed by Komeho. In March the three trainers had an opportunity to join other representatives of indigenous peoples’ communities in southern Africa, particularly Namibia, Botswana, and South Africa – participating in a workshop entitled “Plants, Livelihoods and Community Conservation in the Kalahari”. The workshop addressed two primary gaps in community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) in southern Africa:
1. The international and national instruments that exist to protect and enforce indigenous rights to natural resources;
2. The important role that plant resources play in the lives of indigenous and local communities.
Learning from this project will contribute to a wider, cross-boarder initiative to conserve San plant-lore, with a guide to San plants nearing completion.
Project Collaborators
• Global Diversity Foundation
• Komeho
• The Eden Project
Help GardenAfrica and our Food Security Project
Make a Donation to GardenAfrica
<< Back to Countries where GardenAfrica operates list
Support for the internally displaced San peoples in Namibia.
In partnership with the Global Diversity Foundation and The Eden Project, as well as local NGO, Komeho Namibia, the Kalahari Garden Project was established to support the internally displaced San peoples in Corridor, to promote and preserve traditional environmental knowledge, build nutritional health, and contribute to building the skills and opportunities necessary for creating a renewed sense of self-reliance.
The Challenge
The San once hunted and gathered for edible and medicinal plants on land that is now commercial or communal farmland. Boreholes on these farms have been responsible for lowering the water table, disrupting game patterns, and placing unforeseen pressures on bio-cultural diversity, with many of the plants and techniques used over thousands of years to manage these resources, now at risk of being lost to future generations. People who have been hunter/gatherers for thousands of years, have been forced to settle, without any knowledge of cultivation, resulting in extreme poverty and poor health.
Our Reponse
This project is working with schools and communities to assist them to feed themselves and their children, and to pilot indigenous gardens - researching and putting into cultivation species which are more culturally and ecologically appropriate.
The Project now has a total of 42 gardens spread between five villages. The majority of gardens are already yielding produce. The gardens are 10 x 14 metres and have strong, livestock-proof fencing and rows of tilled sand improved with dung and ash. Summer vegetables sown included tomatoes, kale, chilli pepper, pumpkin, squash, beetroot, carrots, watermelon and onions. Clementine, pomegranate and fig trees were also planted. Winter vegetables sown include Swiss chard, cabbage, cauliflower and carrots. Where water pressure is sufficient, the gardens are equipped with drip irrigation systems.
The Kalahari Garden Project is based on previous ethno botanical and anthropological research carried out in the area by project coordinator Hattie Wells, working with San represented NGOs, and the experience of partner organisations in rural development and dryland horticultural. The harvest and consumption data recorded in the past year suggests that diet has already been significantly improved, providing considerable hope that this population may be able to make a successful transition, for the future generation.
One participant, Ida Gei//amses, a San woman living in Post 17, Corridor, commented that
“Before the project we had no food and finding food was difficult. Now we can go into the garden and feed ourselves and our children, and we are no longer just sitting and waiting for the government to deliver food aid.”
Building Local Capacity
As well as providing solar pumps and water catchment tanks, water committees were established in each village to facilitate the management of water points in each area. Further resource-security training was provided to project staff (including Komeho) by GA with a view to improving facilitators’ abilities to develop adaptation strategies when working in arid regions. This two week training was an opportunity to bring our partner organisations together in Zimbabwe to share experiences at Fambidzanai Permaculture Centre.
The three local San who were trained under the project, will now be employed by Komeho. In March the three trainers had an opportunity to join other representatives of indigenous peoples’ communities in southern Africa, particularly Namibia, Botswana, and South Africa – participating in a workshop entitled “Plants, Livelihoods and Community Conservation in the Kalahari”. The workshop addressed two primary gaps in community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) in southern Africa:
1. The international and national instruments that exist to protect and enforce indigenous rights to natural resources;
2. The important role that plant resources play in the lives of indigenous and local communities.
Learning from this project will contribute to a wider, cross-boarder initiative to conserve San plant-lore, with a guide to San plants nearing completion.
Project Collaborators
• Global Diversity Foundation
• Komeho
• The Eden Project
Help GardenAfrica and our Food Security Project
Make a Donation to GardenAfrica
<< Back to Countries where GardenAfrica operates list
