Driefontein women grow the future a crop at a time

In tune with the African proverb “It takes a village to raise a child”, the Intobeko Yomndeni Cooperation in Driefontein is doing wonders with their vegetable garden.

Led by Thembeni Ndlela, known as Gogo T, together with Busisiwe Mngadi and Nomajeyisi Mfunda, the women turned unused land belonging to a local school into a productive vegetable garden growing potatoes, spinach, green peppers, tomatoes and other vegetables.

While they welcome buying clients, most of their vegetables go to feeding children from their area daily and helping those who have no money.

“We initially identified 13 struggling children, but we got way more than that because the number of people, not just children, who are struggling in our area is high. We cannot turn them away. We help out anyone who knocks on our door,” said Gogo T.

She said they began their garden by planting vegetables outside her house, until Qoqulwazi Secondary School management offered their school grounds to expand their farming activities.

Government funding helped them with fencing and the drilling of a borehole for irrigation.

They would like to help more people and are looking for a sponsor for rice or mielie meal.

Gogo T said they now have more land available on which they intend to grow mushrooms for commercial use.

“We hope to get at least one tunnel because as much as we produce great quality vegetables, the sun sometimes damages our crops. Going forward we want to start hydroponic farming, especially for mushrooms.”

Contact Gogo T at 082 958 9566.

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