IMPROVING the lives of the people in his community by ensuring food security is what drives a young Seed of Hope (SoH) volunteer as he looks forward to imparting the gardening knowledge he has learned.

Mbongeleni Ngcobo is undergoing a year-long Farming God’s Way internship with Inundo Development Trust, which partnered with SoH. Farming God’s Way is a farming model designed to fight poverty through a transformational approach to growing food.

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Inundo Development Trust’s creative director, Kerry Wiens, said the organisation operates a training farm that seeks to invest in leaders to help them become accredited Farming God’s Way trainers.

“It was the visionary leadership of Londiwe Myeza, CEO of SoH, who proposed the resourcing of SoH volunteers to grow food in 2021 during the Covid-19 pandemic. That year, SoH sent their volunteer gardening team,” said Kerry.

Out of the group, Mbongeleni began to show leadership, aptitude and passion through these training sessions. When he completes training, Mbongeleni will also become an accredited Farming God’s Way trainer.

The community of Bhekulwandle was recently invited to attend free gardening training at SoH, but Mbongeleni said it was mostly the elderly who turned up.

“The training was positively accepted by those who attended, but we would like to target the youth. We really need to push it to young people because this will be a useful tool to fight unemployment and crime, which are all rife in our community,” said Mbongeleni.

He said he sees agriculture as a way forward and he is dedicated to promoting it.

“This is what I want to do and I will do all I can to make it widely known in our community,” he said.

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