TB/HIV Care gets its hands dirty for Mandela Day!

19^th July 2011

Turning the soil at the Du Noon community vegetable garden

TB/HIV Care Association decided to get active on Mandela Day by helping to develop plots at a community vegetable garden at Du Noon. TB/HIV Care office and field staff and volunteers from companies and other non-profits joined community care workers and community gardeners for the morning of the 18th of July to clear the ground and plant seeds and seedlings to honour the 93rd birthday of one of South Africa’s greatest leaders – Nelson Mandela.

On a large piece of land between the N7 and Potsdam Road the volunteer gardeners clad in old jeans gathered in the early morning mist beneath some large electricity pylons. The land is owned by Eskom, but because of its proximity to the pylons, the land is unsuitable for human habitation. An agreement was therefore reached several years ago with the neighbouring Du Noon community that the area could be used for gardening. Already several plots boast tall mielies and lush spinach and cabbage plants.

In the spirit of Mandela Day, each of the TB/HIV Care community care workers who are based at the Du Noon clinic, decided to clear a plot of land in this area and to be responsible for growing vegetables in it. The community care workers support patients who must take the long and often difficult treatment journey of six months or more to cure TB, or the lifetime journey of treatment to manage HIV – and sometimes both. In too many cases, patients do not have enough to eat and have to take medication on an empty stomach. To help alleviate this problem, the community care workers decided to grow vegetables, some of which could be given to their patients to assist with food security.

The ‘can-do’ attitude of the volunteers!	Some of the volunteers from Cross-Cultural Solutions in action

After this project was publicised on the “Greater Good South Africa” website and chosen as one of their flagship projects, individual volunteers and volunteers from IT Select, Cross-Cultural Solutions and even Greater Good staff themselves signed up to assist for the morning. Killarney Racecourse and Karoo Spring Waters also assisted the project by providing parking for the volunteers near the venue as the road to the garden is rough and parking scarce. Sasko donated an amazing 30 loaves of bread to feed the volunteers and Maggi Best and Moira le Cordeur made sandwiches for the morning. Leftover sandwiches were then donated to the patients at Du Noon clinic.

The volunteers worked enthusiastically, digging in the sun and learning how to make a trench garden – combining compost, sand and dead vegetation in layers to create a fertile bed for the beetroot, cabbage and spinach seeds that were planted. The volunteers learnt firsthand how difficult it is to irrigate the plots because of the distance from the two taps that cover the area.

The day was made more special by the fact that it was not only the birthday of Madiba, but also of TB/HIV Care Association’s Director, Prof Harry Hausler. The CCWs presented Prof Hausler with a bouquet of lilies growing in the garden and sang “Happy Birthday” to him and Madiba. It was a fitting end to a joyous and satisfying day of hard work for a good cause!

References:
TB/HIV Care Association, www.tbhivcare.org, 021 425 0050