Key focus areas

Issues of underdevelopment are not a recent phenomenon. Historical inequalities continue to be compounded by lack of access to resources, poor health, poverty and changing weather patterns. We must now be committed to developing an integrated approach which views existing knowledge and strengths as part of the long-term solution.

Schools and Education
Teacher training at 'living classrooms' for curriculum delivery via cognitive skills development. Gardens also provide food for school lunches to aid concentration and learning. Surplus produce is sold to help finance other initiative within the school. More on GardenAfrica's Schools and Education initiatives.

Health Management
Gardens are created at hospitals and clinics, providing nutrition to boost natural immunity against secondary infections, and to improve the absorption of, and adherence to, life saving anti-retroviral (ARV) treatment programmes. ARVs control HIV, but do not directly affect the immune system. Good nutrition is needed alongside ARVs to facilitate immune reconstitution. Vitamins and minerals found in fruits and vegetables are vital for a strong immune system. Garden planning and training therefore seeks to address specific nutritional needs. More on GardenAfrica's Health Management initiatives.

Sustainable Livelihoods
GardenAfrica equips communities to plant and harvest their gardens without relying on foreign aid and inputs. GardenAfrica's role is to set up the projects, train community leaders, support and capture data for three years and then withdraw. Each project should ideally have the capacity to grow into a small business, and support continued training within each community. Thus the gardens are sustainable in every sense of the word. More on GardenAfrica's Sustainable Livelihoods initiatives.

Conservation and Communities
GardenAfrica works to build relationships between people and the plants that sustain them. In this way, our projects increase understanding around the need for the management and conservation of botanical resources, many of which are essential for traditional healthcare. These resources, upon which some 85% of the population in sub-Saharan Africa depend, are under threat from environmental degradation and over exploitation. More on GardenAfrica's Conservation and Communities initiatives.

Localised Economic Development
Workshops offer skills training for small-scale horticulture, nursery and smallholder management, and small business producing environmental products and services, such as rainwater tanks, guttering, composting toilets, solar architecture, seed banks, propagation of multi-use plants, onsite building material technology, soft technology (water wheels, windmills etc) - all of which can be produced and sold locally. More on GardenAfrica's Localised Economic Development initiatives.

Inter Generational Knowledge Exchange
Rural Community Gardens foster localised economic development and a focus for community driven exchange for the sharing of indigenous knowledge systems between generations, ensuring the continuation of vital botanical information to the next generation of carers and providers. More on GardenAfrica's Inter Generational Knowledge Exchange initiatives.