Ekukhanyeni gives back to people the most ancient skill of living in harmony with the earth to feed oneself, family and community from its abundance…Barren earth is transformed into gardens that can feed and heal.
As a Public Benefit NGO, we work from within marginalised communities to build resilience to a multitude of social challenges including food and nutrition insecurity. Ekukhanyeni has been revitalising impoverished communities by reintroducing low-cost, sustainable urban agriculture through permaculture methodologies.
Accredited and innovative agricultural, health & nutrition and agri-business training is offered to improve household and community food security, support healthier eating and lifestyle choices and promote sustainable livelihoods.
Community-based Training Facilitators are certified to provide the training and mentorship support for community members to develop and sustain food gardens and small-scale farms.
Local food gardeners are also employed and upskilled to support productive food gardens to feed and nourish our children at Ekukhanyeni’s beneficiary Early Childhood Development Centers in the informal settlement of Lawley.
Community Gardens
Community members are empowered with the necessary knowledge to ensure food security through ecologically friendly sustainable methodologies
Through our ongoing interventions, the availability of organic, nutritious food has increased for community beneficiaries with the production of healthy, locally-grown vegetables. Naturally grown food gardens using permaculture design methodologies form the backbone of Ekukhanyeni, providing life sustaining nourishment and food security to the community members, as well as a means through which they can learn to grow their own food and earn a living.
Coupled with our accredited training and post-training mentorship, the creation of food gardens as the primary means of providing food and nutrition security to our beneficiaries has had an enormous impact on the community we serve.
Beneficiaries can now see how urban small-scale farming is an effective way to improve one’s socio-economic and health status.
The impact of our AgriSETA accredited agricultural training in our geographical impact and further afield continues to broaden and our network of community growers and food gardens continues to increase in number and size to include ECD Centers, households, Schools, local NGOs and CBOs and larger agricultural cooperatives.
Agri-Services
Sharing our knowledge to help those that want to make a difference leave a lasting sustainable impact.
We offer a range of consulting services to extend the impact and shared learning of our programme and model for food and nutrition security to provide diversified revenues to sustain the Organisation.
The importance of our agri-services, which are tailored to the individual needs of our clients, is the combined focus on training, consultation and mentorship. Through this approach, we ensure that continuous upskilling, assistance and project sustainability is achieved.
Imperative to the success of any project is the upskilling of its project members. Ekukhanyeni prides itself in having a Team of experienced training Facilitators who can offer accredited training, as well as mentorship and one-on-one contact sessions with project members to improve their own experience within their food gardens and to ensure that members are sustainable in terms of food security, health and sustainable livelihoods.
Our focus for agri-services in the last years has been on developing a viable and sustainable model for school food gardens. Delicious, naturally grown vegetables are used in many school feeding schemes to keep the young learners well nourished and income generated from excess crops used to pay the school gardeners.
Services include:
- Agri-project site analysis and needs assessment
- Provision of accredited skills training in agriculture, health & nutrition and agri-business
- Establishment of small-scale food gardens with appropriate infrastructure and sustainable methodologies in place OR the development of agri-cooperatives
- Coaching & Mentorship of project members