07 Nov 2020 Fall 2020: What We Have Been Up To
Growing Gardens
Our gardens are thriving and they have helped improve food security within our communities greatly during these difficult times.
Our team has been working at A Spring of Hope’s Permaculture Center, planting summer veggies, collecting seeds, starting seedlings, and experimenting with new permaculture techniques. Trygive, Leanette, and Susan have also been growing their community gardens and helping their neighbors and local churches start gardens as well.
We are witnessing how securing a sustainable source of water and teaching groups about permaculture can truly transform a community. Omega’s Community Garden in Newington, is a testament to this. After a few visits from Trygive, Omega and his neighbors were able to design their garden, plant seedlings, and implement permaculture techniques to maintain and grow the garden. His village struggles with a lack of water and food availability and the national lockdown has exasperated this. The garden has become a reliable source of fresh nutritious food for Omega’s community. The garden has provided a source of hope and health and we are excited to see the garden grow and Omega’s community come together to support one another.
Schools are back in session and we have been visiting and communicating with our partner schools to ensure our water, sanitation, and garden projects are running smoothly. Trygive is currently visiting schools to help in their gardens and teach students about permaculture. This month, Trygive will be working with Senianya Primary School, Mahashe Primary School, and Ntsoelemolodi Primary School. Stay tuned for pictures and videos to come.
Our South Africa & USA Student Program
This year we collaborated with Lynne Scott, high school sustainability and biology teacher at Principia Upper School in Missouri to create a series of guest lectures for her sustainability class’s Food Security Unit. We also paired up the class with 11th and 12th grade students in South Africa. The students will stay connected throughout the school year, talking about the different topics they are learning, discussing how various environmental issues affect them differently, and sharing their lives outside of the classroom. Emily and Trygive led weekly lessons for six weeks, discussing what attributes to the poor food security in rural South Africa and how we work to strengthen food security in the communities we serve. This is an exciting new project and we plan to continue the connection throughout the year, connecting on zoom each month to discuss the current topics they are learning about and how it relates to communities in South Africa. We hope to share this project with more sustainability classes throughout the US, sharing knowledge about permaculture and our many sustainability projects centered around improving food and water security.
Thank You To Our Donors!
Your support has helped us to create new programs and complete WASH projects that have impacted over 75,000 people in the Limpopo and Mpumalanga provinces of South Africa. We want to thank you for your dedication to the rural communities in South Africa and the young learners who struggle daily due to the lack of clean water, sanitation, and basic supplies at their schools.
Like many organizations, A Spring of Hope is struggling financially due to the COVID19 crisis.We have been trying hard to continue our projects and serve our communities as best we can with the resources we have. With a lack of funding we have been struggling to start new projects. We need your help so that we can continue our WASH projects, drill new boreholes at schools in need, and open our permaculture center to the community.
We look forward to the future but we can not reach our goals without the support from donors like you. Thank you again for your continued support of our organization and thank you for any donations you can make to help us further our work.
Want to learn more about our current need?
Reach out to Emily,