INMED South Africa launches seeds for life campaign

At a time when increasing levels of hunger due to poverty and severe climate events, now exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic, are pushing many vulnerable families in South Africa deeper into poverty and starvation, INMED South Africa has launched an innovative Seeds for Life campaign to help 2 500 struggling households plant home gardens.

The campaign has been launched on the Global Giving platform and the INMED SA website, calling for donations to provide free seeds and training to families on the brink of starvation, with future assistance to ensure the gardens and families thrive.

Seeds for home gardens

According to Dr Sandra Pretorius, Programme Director for INMED’s Health in Action programme, food security begins in the backyard. “Home and community gardens are a simple solution to improve access to nutritious food,” she says. “Our team has nearly two decades of experience helping individuals, schools and communities implement adaptive agriculture projects to strengthen food security and build sustainable livelihoods in all types of environments.”

INMED’s Seeds for Life project has many potential long-term impacts, including improved physical and mental health leading to a reduction in preventable lifestyle diseases as well as financial savings.

Soweto_Seeds

“Our approach in this campaign is to use children as change agents,” says Pretorius.  Schools that are already part of INMED South Africa’s programmes will identify learners to receive seed packs to start a food garden at their homes with support from parents and guardians. “We are selecting households with the most need from the communities we work in, through our Break Time Buddies,” she adds.

Students Planting

INMED South Africa also is working with seed companies, such as Sakata, to support this initiative. “If support for the campaign grows, and we receive enough donations, we will be able to roll out the programme to other provinces in our footprint too,” says Pretorius.

The first phase of Seeds for Life will focus on raising R250 00 to support 2 500 households in Johannesburg (Diepsloot, Cosmo City, Soweto and Orange Farm) and Port Elizabeth (Kwa-Zakhele, Zwide, Motherwell and Northern areas).  The seeds will be packaged in small compostable paper bags, with enough to plant five different crops of summer, and later winter, gardens. INMED South Africa also will provide training material and demonstrations. “The aim is to be able to deliver the first seeds in September/October at the start of Spring,” says Pretorius.

“It is an ambitious plan, but we believe it is achievable,” concludes Janet Ogilvie, Operations Manager for INMED South Africa. “Our Health in Action programme sponsor, Mondelēz International Foundation, has already donated the first 250 packs and is challenging other companies to do same.”

For more information and to support this campaign, please visit INMED SA or Global Giving.

About INMED Partnerships for Children

INMED Partnerships for Children is a non-profit international development organisation that has worked in more than 100 countries for over 30 years to build pathways for vulnerable children and families to achieve well-being and self-reliance. Through multisector partnerships and in-country affiliates, INMED builds effective systems that deliver innovative and sustainable approaches to break complex cycles of poverty for current and future generations.

About INMED South Africa

Since 2006, in-country affiliate INMED South Africa has been working in collaboration with a wide range of corporate, foundation and government partners to transform the health, lives and futures of South Africa’s most vulnerable children. INMED South Africa’s programmes focus on food security, child and community health, and economic and social development via climate-smart agriculture and participatory education. Incorporated under Section 21, INMED South Africa is a registered non-profit organization (NPC/PBO) recognized by the Department of Social Development and the South African Revenue Service (SARS).

About the Mondelēz International Foundation

The Mondelēz International Foundation (MIF) is the charitable arm of global food and beverage conglomerate Mondelēz International. Through international partnerships with leading NGOs, MIF funds nutrition education, active play and fresh foods programs to empower more than one million children and their families around the world to lead healthier lives.