21 June 2024
In partnership with Khulisa Social Solutions and Get Informed Youth Development Centre, over a two-day period just before Youth Day 2024, Glacier Team North got together with some young people from the Centre and learners from Shukumani Primary school to start a vegetable garden in Tembisa, Johannesburg. This was a follow-on of the garden initiative in Kliptown for Youth Day 2023.
“The Kliptown garden initiative was a great success and such a joy to get involved in as Glacier staff, so we decided to do a second garden, this time in Tembisa” reports Anita Kwaza, business development co-ordinator at Glacier in Johannesburg. “We’re very pleased that the first garden is doing well, and that the community members are maintaining it and benefiting from its produce”.
About the organisation
Get Informed was founded in 2013, with the intention to contribute to reducing youth unemployment and effectively bridge the gap in employment opportunities. Over the past decade, the Centre has experienced exponential growth and has served as a dynamic hub offering information, knowledge, and essential skills. By providing access to relevant opportunities, Get Informed plays a pivotal role in empowering the communities it serves. Notably, the organisation has earned recognition from the Department of Social Development as a key socio-economic upliftment partner, esteemed for its expertise, skills, and acclaimed best-practice model.
One of the many projects that Get Informed runs is an aftercare and community nutrition centre, which offers homework assistance to pupils after school; urban farming; ICT skills training; as well as robotics and coding.
Glacier Team North getting their hands dirty for Youth Day
In underprivileged communities, food security is one of the most important priorities and a source of profound stress for people who live in these communities. This need is compounded for growing children, whose capacity to concentrate at school, research has shown, is greatly reduced as a result of empty tummies. The urban farming initiative at Get Informed helps to eliminate this, and that’s where Glacier Team North got involved.
Anita points out that with the donations from staff of seeds, equipment and tools and their efforts over the two-day period, Glacier and the youth of Get Informed ended their time together exhausted, but proud creators of a beautiful veggie garden. She says, “Hopefully for years to come, the harvests from the garden will add to the children’s nutrition”.
