Correspondent: Glenda Howieson

My name is Glenda and I live in Pinetown, South Africa.- a place where first and third worlds live cheek by jowl. I have been involved in Phakamisa for the past 7 years. We strive to uplift impoverished communities (those in the third world) through the provision of training, resourcing and support. (Phakamisa is a Zulu word meaning to uplift.)

This year, we are training 220 people to teach 8500 children in the 0-6 year age groups. We call these our Educare Workshops. We are also supporting and training over 500 people caring for 2000 orphans. This training happens in the Caregiver Workshops - Most of these people have few if any resources available to them and have had little or no formal education.

Hunger is an ongoing, urgent cry we hear every day, both from the Educare Centres AND the Caregivers. Imagine listening to children crying themselves to sleep every night, because they are hungry and not being able to do anything about it, because you have NO resources at all!! It breaks my heart to hear the pleas for help and not be able to assist for lack of financial resources within the project.

A pro active way in which we deal with this, however, is through the vegetable gardening programme. Deborah Zungu teaches the theory and demonstrates practically how to grow vegetables in the Care givers' workshops. She then visits the Educare Centres and communal gardens and practically helps the people in their gardens, to deal with the practicalities of implementing the theory into their own situations, controlling pests, making compost etc. This requires a lot of motivation and support. Presently we have over 40 gardens on the Educare Centre property or on communal land strips. Generally they are flourishing and providing much need wholesome nutrition for the children and adults.

Apart from the problem of motivating very impoverished communities, we find the difficulties exacerbated by our erratic rainfall and harsh climate. Often people, who have sweated and laboured for long periods in the gardens, lose their crops through drought or theft.

In an attempt to meet the need for water, we are erecting concrete water tanks when ever we can get the funding. The water is collected off the roofs of buildings, if they are suitable, or else springs are built to catch run- off water. This is certainly helping to ensure the viability of the gardens, although recently we dedicated a tank which had been built in February and when we wanted to fill a watering can from it to plant a tree, there was no water in the tank! It has been so dry, for so long that the tank was empty!

South Africa is an exciting place where challenges abound and where opportunity exists to transform broken lives, however, it requires a wide variety of resources. Being in partnership with GORTA is enabling us to make a difference in the lives of several thousand people. For that we are most grateful!

We have an adapted phrase I'd like to leave with you: "Give a man a potato and he'll be satisfied for a day; teach him to grow potatoes and he'll satisfy many for a life time."

If you would like to find out more about Phakamisa, please visit our web site on: www.phakamisa.org or see our church web site on: www.pmc.org.za

Most sincerely,

Glenda Howieson
September 2003