More than just a soup kitchen for women, kids
Gugu’s garden of opportunity provides food for the soul of a local community
ALUSH vegetable garden started by Mandisa Dlamini, the daughter of an HIV/AIDS activist, in the family backyard has brought hope to many orphans who went to bed without food.
Dlamini founded the Gugu Dlamini centre with help from her adopted parent in Pretoria to honour her mother Gugu, who was stoned to death by a mob after disclosing her HIV/AIDS status in 1998 in Ntuzuma, a township in northern Durban.
Her house is now a mini-memorial museum.
After starting the centre, Dlamini realised that a multitude of Aids orphans were going to school on an empty stomach.
She began a soup kitchen to feed starving children in the community, but with financial support for non-profit organisations dwindling, Mandisa had to come up with a plan to sustain the feeding scheme.
The first problem she encountered was the exorbitant food prices. She then decided to utilise the little space she had at the back of her house by growing spinach, beetroot, cabbages, tomatoes and onions.
Dlamini said the number of children who depended on her feeding scheme was swelling, and she felt providing them with fresh produce would strengthen their weak immune systems.
“We started feeding about 30 children a day but to date the number has tripled. We feed them soup with bread in the morning before going to school and in the afternoon a variety of meals is available to them before going home because we do not want them to go to bed hungry.
“I could not fold my arms when I saw children begging for food because of hunger. Most of them have to take medication because of their health condition but they need a (proper) diet as prescribed by doctors,” she said.
She also helps primary school children with their homework.
“Since the feeding scheme started they are showing signs of improvement. Their marks have improved. They do not have to worry about what to eat when they get home because they have already been fed at the centre.”
Dlamini said she was overwhelmed with joy to see the community who once despised her mother benefiting from the centre.
She said the centre had attracted international tourists during the International Aids Conference in Durban last year.
“I was applauded due to the work that we do here but I did that for my mother and the love of this community, which has been besieged by poverty and political violence. This is the community which had not known love before because of the hardships they went through. They need someone to show them all is possible if they believe in themselves,” Dlamini said.
Her garden has also opened up training opportunities to matriculants and graduates in the field of agriculture. She has hired a couple to look after the garden and nurture the soil.
Dlamini also provides training and skills to local women on how to deal with the stigma of living with the illness.
“People come here with different expectations, which shows the level of suffering in our communities. The women and children who come to our centre are despondent – what would they become if we shun them?
“Before we start to listen to their problems we feed them first so they get strength to articulate their plight to us. We are discouraging them, though, from depending on hand-outs.
“We give them work at the centre through various skills programmes so that we pay them a certain stipend for their work.
“Those who are frail and sick, I help to get medication at the nearest place they can go to through a mobile programme initiated by the Department of Health,” Dlamini said.
Dlamini encouraged other NPOS to start garden crops to avoid disappointment when funding is not available.