Where GardenAfrica Works

Countries GardenAfrica Operates In

Living Classrooms on the Cape Flats, South Africa.

South Africa

Living Classrooms: Sustainable Schools Project (SEED), Cape Flats, South Africa

The Cape Flats, on the outskirts of Cape Town is a poverty stricken area of South Africa. Overcrowding due to rapid urbanisation has led to a degradation of the environment where communities struggle to survive alongside dwindling wildlife. The high level of HIV infection places further hardship on these communities, as access to nutritious food is essential to building immune systems, whilst assisting concentration and learning.

As with many education systems in sub-Saharan Africa, South African children must attend school in full uniform - despite extreme hardship experienced by the majority of families in the Cape Flats. Placing a huge burden on families, many nonetheless see education as so important that uniforms will often take priority over food. The high level of HIV infection at schools in the Cape Flats, near Cape Town, is a stark reminder of Africa's predicament - with infection rates amongst students at 10%, and 25% amongst children and teachers respectively. For this reason increasing access to nutritious foods and employing a land management system which is a low input, high output driven approach to cultivation and production is an essential tool for immune-compromised communities. Reliance on chemicals (for fertilisers and pest control) can worsen the effects of HIV so organic methods are required.

GardenAfrica is supporting local training partner SEED who have established the sustainable schools programme. This innovative pilot has incorporated 12 schools in the Cape Flats area helping them to develop gardens that provide an example for students, and a resource rooted in the heart of the community. Teachers are trained to integrate garden activities into formal learning, brining life into the classroom and essential tools for generations to carry forward.

During this time the project has seen the translation of this approach through environmental education, with two grades at each school taking part in 'active arts' such as painting, theatre and traditional story telling. Open activity days, with garden competitions during the holidays, further encourages the involvement of parents to learn of ways in which they can more fully utilise the resources around them to develop similar gardens - providing food and an improved home environment.

Environmental education has been recognised by the Western Cape Dept of Education as the key to linking learning areas. This program therefore trains teachers to deliver the new outcomes-based curriculum using the garden as a tool, and is instructive to at least five of the eight learning areas:

Technology:
- Constructing worm farms, irrigation systems, sun dials, solar cookers, rain gauges and windmills.
Mathematics:
- Mapping, measuring and recording data.
Natural Sciences:
- Assessing health and sanitation, school environmental investigations, pollution, understanding the past (hunter gatherers / agrarian systems), traditional food and recipes.
Life Orientation:
- Life cycles, cultural attitudes to ecology, concepts of safe and unsafe environments, problem solving - improving your environment, recycling.
Art & Culture:
- Active arts such as role play and drawing, music and modeling such as interpreting shapes and textures in nature and performance around the seasons, poster making to promote the nursery and activity days with parents and finally a waste orchestra: making instruments out of waste.

With the resounding success of the pilot, GardenAfrica is now fund raising to support an expansion to a further 22 schools in the most deprived areas of the Cape Flats in conjunction with SEED. Schools will be identified in partnership with the Dept of Education, and are likely to include nodes in Khayelitsha, Mitchells Plein, Nyanga, Gugulethu and Philippi.