Community & Conservation in Southern Africa
The Kalahari Garden Project
The Kalahari Garden Project was launched in July 2007, in order to help San communities living in the Omaheke region of Namibia, to improve their food security and nutrition through the development of home-gardens. The project also set out to help promote and preserve traditional environmental knowledge, and contribute to building the skills and opportunities necessary for creating a renewed sense of self-reliance within the community.
The project has assisted the San with the development and maintenance of forty-two gardens spread throughout five villages in the Aminuis Corridor. These are providing nutritious food all year round to a population of approximately 550 San. Each San household has been provided with the material for building a garden and given training in vegetable production and harvesting.
The gardens are 10 x 14 meters and have strong, livestock proof fencing and eight rows of tilled sand improved with animal manure. Vegetables sown during the warmer season include tomatoes, kale, chilli pepper, pumpkin, butternut squash, beetroot, carrots, watermelon, onions, cowpeas, maize, sweet potatoes, morogo (Amaranth sp.), and Swiss chard. Those sown for the winter include turnips, cauliflower, cabbage, Swiss chard, onions, carrots and beetroot. Clementine, pomegranate, fig trees and mulberry bushes have also been planted in the gardens, with each garden receiving two fruit trees. All gardens are equipped with drip irrigation systems.
The gardens were collaboratively designed by horticultural technician, Ian Martin (Curator of the Dry Tropics Biome at the UK Eden Project), the project team and San beneficiaries. Martin provided training in building gardens and sowing seeds during a three-week visit in September 2007, and again in October 2008. Additional training has been periodically provided by Komeho Namibia. More recently, project staff were trained in permaculture at the Fambidzanai Permaculture Centre, Harare, Zimbabwe.
Due to gardens requiring a reliable water supply, the project focused its attention and resources on water delivery systems in each of the villages. We facilitated improvements where necessary, which have included: a) installing a new solar pump, panels and generator in one village; b) installing new 10,000L water tanks on raised stands to improve the water pressure and increase control over water delivery to the gardens; c) laying new pipelines to all of the beneficiary households and installing new taps (many of the households didn’t previously own taps); d) fixing leaks in the existing lines; and e) facilitating water point committee meetings and community based management of water in the area. Improvements were made with the help of the governmental agency, the Rural Water Supply, who provided technical advice and assistance in the building of the tank stands.
The San involved in the project have been enthusiastic from the start. Children have been actively involved in some of the gardens, helping to sow the seeds and learning about the gardens when they come home from boarding school. Garden owners have expressed that the gardens are helping them to feed themselves and their families.
A local San lady, Ida Gei//amses recently reported,
“Before the project we had no food and finding food was difficult. Now we can go into the garden and feed ourselves and our children, and we are no longer just sitting and waiting for the government to deliver food aid.”
The Global Diversity Foundation initiated this project in partnership with Namibian Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), Komeho Namibia and Working Group for Indigenous Minorities of Southern Africa (WIMSA), with support from the Eden Project (UK). British NGO Garden Africa became a project partner in January 2009. The project was designed to be implemented by GDF, Komeho Namibia and WIMSA for two years, with the partnership ending in July 2009, and our local partners assuming responsibility for the project’s continuation. On reviewing the sustainability of the project and remaining KGP funds at that point, we decided to extend GDF’s involvement in the project management until 31 October 2009. After this point, Komeho assumed full responsibility for the continued management of the project for a further three years. GDF will continue to liaise with Komeho and offer technical advice and support where needed, but our day-to-day involvement has now come to an end.
The long-term goal of the project has always been to reduce on-site assistance, and empower the beneficiaries to manage the project alone, ultimately making the gardens self-sustainable. Komeho’s involvement reflects this, and their management plan aims to reduce on-site assistance gradually over the next two years.
Read more about the Kalahari Garden Project at : Community & Conservation in South Africa, KGP's blog , or download January 2008 newsletter , April 2008 newsletter, July 2008 newsletter, 2007-08 annual report, July 2009 newsletter, and the November 2009 newsletter.
You might also want to contact Hattie Wells or download pdf brochure.
