Masupatsela

EDITH MVELASE (RHODES PARK LIBRARY)
DIRECTED by JACQUELINE VAN MEYGAARDEN
EDITED by JEMIMA SPRING
TX 12 July 2010

Edith Mvelase laughs as she says: “People ask me where I get the energy from. I don’t know where, but I do have it.”

Edith is one of those trailblazing individuals who has the innate ability to make a difference. An opportunity will arise and she cannot help but take it with both hands and make it into something that impacts not just her life, but the lives of those around her.

She grew up in the Eastern Cape and learnt about growing food as a child. After school, she came to Johannesburg and got a teaching qualification, but found it was not for her. Spending time in the Central Library while she was studying however, gave her a feel for what would eventually become her career. She started working in the library part-time and then ended up working full-time at Rhodes Park Library, studying after hours to become a qualified librarian.

Edith’s go-getter attitude resulted in her being selected for a management course. As part of this, she had to identify a problem area at the library, come up with a plan to address this and then implement it. The gardens around the library were in a real state – so she had the idea of cleaning the area up and turning it into a vegetable garden. With help from The Greenhouse Project and other NGO’s working in the area, she, other library staff and volunteers established a great garden – not without a learning curve though!

When a colleague became ill and died from AIDS, Edith was motivated to learn more about this disease. This led her to the Zaziwe Hope for Life Centre, a hospice that cares for people with no other access to health care. Speaking to the kitchen manager, she found out that they were completely reliant on food donations. This gave her the idea of supplying them with veg from the library garden.

When offered the opportunity to participate in a literacy programme at the library, Edith quickly took it a step further. Her teaching training came to the fore and she started running the classes herself, focusing especially on foreigners who needed to learn English in order to study or find work in South Africa. Many of them come from war-torn DRC.

In amongst all this activity, she still works at her job as a librarian and looks after her family!

TO CONTACT OR CONTRIBUTE TO THE GARDEN AT RHODES PARK LIBRARY:
contact them on +27 11 615 4510.

TO TRANSFORM YOUR WORK YARD INTO A THRIVING GARDEN, HERE’S HOW EDITH DID IT:
- she saw that the garden was in disrepair and that there were many people in the community who were ill
- she started a food garden with the help of the Greenhouse Project
- she donated vegetables to a hospice and an old age home
- when things didn’t go according to plan, she and her helpers kept trying until they were successful
- she wanted to make the library more accessible to the broader community
- she started literacy classes and English classes for foreigners to help people get jobs.

SEED
DIRECTED by JANE KENNEDY
EDITED by TINA-LOUISE SMITH
TX 12 July 2010

SEED stands for Schools Environmental Education and Development. SEED began its work with schools on the Cape Flats and aims to transform learning environments through permaculture.

SEED focuses on mentoring teachers to integrate Environmental Education into their teaching practice and developing the garden as a living laboratory for the delivery of the National Curriculum Statements. Their various programmes have been developed in response to needs identified by teachers on the Cape Flats where school environments are often bleak. SEED’s programmes allow teachers to use the garden as an outdoor classroom for learners to engage with the world around them and to apply what they have learnt about the natural sciences in the classroom practically in the garden.

The principal at Rocklands Primary in Mitchells Plain, Kevin Pretorius, is one of the board members of SEED. At the moment their school garden is managed by SEED and the teachers and maintained by SEED, teachers and learners. Their goal is to have the garden run by the parents so that the people who benefit from the garden will also be managing it throughout the year, not only during school terms as happens now.

TO CONTACT OR CONTRIBUTE TO THE WORK THAT SEED IS DOING:
telephone them on +27 21 391 5316, email them or visit their web site.

IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO START A REVOLUTIONARY PERMACULTURE PROGRAMME FOR SCHOOLS LIKE SEED DID:
- inform and educate yourself around the principles of permaculture
- share your idea with the local school
- listen to the staff and make a list of their needs and ideas
- register your organisation as a Non-Profit Organisation
- make sure your training programme is an accredited permaculture training programme
- start digging!
- and as you have learnt by now, keep raising funds to keep your project going!

SCREEN GRABS FROM THE RHODES PARK LIBRARY AND SEED STORIES: