One Tuesday a few weeks ago I accompanied Duncan Drennan (The Art of Engineering), Duncan’s beautifully pregnant wife Donne, Pia Taylor (Mother City Living), Stefan (a lecturer in applied mathematics at Stellenbosch) and Ruan (a helicopter pilot in training) on a tour of the Fezeka community garden in Gugulethu and the Harvest of Hope packing shed in Phillipi. Both the Fezeka garden (one of many community gardens) and Harvest of Hope form part of the Abalimi Bezekhaya organisation that assists urban farmers to produce food for themselves, their families and communities and to sell their surplus crops.
We started the tour at the BP service station on Rosmead Avenue where we were met by Rob Small, a friendly and enthusiastic man who works tirelessly to bring in funds for Abalimi, as well as running regular Tuesday morning tours of the gardens in a bid to win over more supporters to the project. Rob overflows with passion for the Abalimi project and what it is doing for people in Cape Town’s townships. His enthusiasm is infectious and seeps into everything he says.
Fezeka community garden stands at the foot of a huge pylon
Rob lead the way into Gugulethu and Fezeka, where he explained how 40% of the residents of Cape Town’s informal settlements are unemployed, and where there’s poverty, there is also hunger. The core business of Abalimi is to combat poverty by growing food sustainably (and organically) both at home and in community gardens, and to further green the township areas by planting water wise indigenous trees in the schools and streets of the area. Rob explained that when the Abalimi project started 15 years ago, their aim was to help people achieve subsistence from their growing activities. These days they have surpassed that and are aiming at providing a livelihood for those who before had a hard time even feeding themselves.
We were shown around Fezeka Garden and met some of the mama’s who run the place. There are very few men involved in growing community gardens on the Cape Flats, the majority of the farmers are women.
Mama Maggie transporting manure to her crops with a wheelbarrow
We were able to take photographs of the gardens and ask Rob questions about how Abalimi facilitates the creation of these food gardens. He explained that Abalimi “subsidises” the farmers to the tune of R150 per farmer per month (that’s around US $15 a month) by providing training, manure and set-up and maintenance of an irrigation system for each garden. This figure is much, much lower than the subsidies provided by government to commercial farmers. Abalimi also helps the farmers gain access to council land and negotiates on their behalf to obtain access to water, for example.
From Fezeka we moved on to the Harvest of Hope packing shed in Phillipi. Harvest of Hope is the marketing and selling arm of Abalimi. They collect the vegetables from the farmers once a week and take them back to the packing shed to wash and prepare for delivery. The vegetables make up weekly organic vegetable boxes that are distributed via some of Cape Town’s southern suburbs schools. (It is possible to buy a Harvest of Hope veg box even if you don’t have children at one of the selected schools, see below for more details).
I was blown away by the amazing fresh smell as we walked into the packing shed. It was a beautiful experience. Click here to read more…
It’s World Environment Day and the launch day of Open Green Map, a global initiative to map out local natural, cultural and green living sites, to help people make greener lifestyle choices. There are launches being held around the world today: Cape Town, Geneva, Jakarta, Stockholm, Baltimore, Pereira Colombia, the UK towns of Swansea, Clackmannanshire, Neath Port Talbot and other places are presenting their green maps to the public.
There’s something particularly special about the Cape Town Green Map launch that I wanted to share with you. It’s probably the lowest carbon launch of all the Green Maps, and I’m quoting from the launch invitation to illustrate why/how:
The venue is “your laptop, PC or iPhone so there are no travel costs or [additional] carbon footprint. The dres code is “optional – but locally designed garb from hemp/bamboo/organic cotton is encouraged”. There are no speakers – “an untold saving on hot air and CO2 emissions”.
In addition there are “no printed invitations (save on ink/chemicals, paper/trees), no printed media packs (save on ink/chemicals, paper/trees and packaging), no travel to the venue (save on CO2 emissions, time and roadwork frustration), no food or beverages (save on packaging, waste, energy and food miles) and no speakers, official openings, ‘live’ performers (save on CO2 emissions, uncomfortable silences and the effort to look impressed)”.
Isn’t that cool? And in this very wet weather I’m extra-specially glad not to be going anywhere!
Here’s a bit more about Cape Town Green Map for Capetonians who are interested in giving it a test-drive:
Cape Town Green Map is updated by interested green Capetonians, making it a direct, democratic communication of local knowledge and action. You can find community gardens, craft centres, recycling drop-offs, areas of natural beauty, shops and markets that sell green and organic products, restaurants and bars who serve organic food and drinks and more. If you know about somewhere green that’s not on the map, you can suggest it to the mapmakers, or become a mapmaker yourself.
More great green news for Cape Town is that in October A&C Maps, who print “Not the official guide to Cape Town”, the “Pink Map” and the “Food Map” will be bringing out a printed version of the Cape Town Green Map. Look out for it!
mob[mob]
n.
1. A large disorderly crowd or throng.
2. The mass of common people; the populace.
3. Informal
a. An organized gang of criminals; a crime syndicate.
b. often Mob Organized crime. Often used with the: a murder suspect with links to the Mob.
4. An indiscriminate or loosely associated group of persons or things: a mob of boats in the harbor.
5. Australian A flock or herd of animals.
The history of the mob
Mobs have been collecting to make a point for centuries. It’s a natural phenomenon when a number of people aren’t happy with the status quo and want to send a message to the authorities for them to mass together to show their collective might. Riots have been a part of the course in England for over 500 years, and we’ve seen our own fair share of them here in South Africa, particularly during the apartheid government years when injustice abounded.
The mob reinvented
Fast forward to 2003, and mobs take on a whole new meaning with the advent of flash mobs in Manhattan, New York City. Bill Wasik, senior editor of Harper’s Magazine, organised the very first flash mob in May 2003. What started out as a social experiment to highlight the cultural atmosphere of conformity and of wanting to be an insider or part of “the next big thing” may have in fact ended up giving conformists the appearance of non-conformity.
Mobs with a cause
The first flash mobs were pretty apolitical, unlike historical mobs, more a sort of performance art. Participants have come together all over the world in the last few years to have pillow fights, dance with their headphones on in a public place (mobile clubbing), or walk like zombies in shopping centres. All just a bit of fun. But some flash mobs have emerged to demonstrate political opinions and as tools of direct action, like Critical Mass and Reclaim the Streets.
The latest mob phenomenon: Carrot Mobbing
A new mob sensation is spreading across the world. It started in Los Angeles earlier this year and has since spread to London. The idea behind Carrot Mobbing is to organise consumers to make purchases that give financial rewards to businesses who agree to make socially beneficial choices. The idea is directed consumption, not extra consumption. For example, the first UK Carrot Mob was an evening at a pub in Shoreditch, where the bar management had agreed to spend 20% of the evenings takings on energy efficiency upgrades. The Carrot Mob were all people who were going to go to the pub after work anyway, this way their spending power was used positively to get one pub to become more energy efficient. The next UK Carrot Mob is planned for a mini-market in greater London on the 6th of November.
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