Clearing the air about Soutana
KNYSNA – Members of the public have reacted to claims by Knysna Municipality that the Soutana community garden was "the brainchild of its Greater Knysna Food Security Forum (GKFSF)" in a municipal press release last week.
Said one Knysna resident on the Facebook page: "When locals work hard on a brilliant sustainable venture and others come steamroll and take the credit dismissing the original work, planning and energy. They should be ashamed of themselves. What did the Knysna Muni do back in 2020? Nothing towards the food garden and not one food parcel to the soup kitchen. KILT through Shireen sponsored chicken but the rest? Where were they? These people got so little help at the time and did great things on their own steam."
In a separate comment local non-profit organisation Sparking Minds, which has played a key role in the growth of the garden, stated on the municipal Facebook page: "Amazing to see how quick people are to claim the credit for this garden that we built from the ground up, from shovelling 250 bags of compost from the generous DP Equestrian to the water tank we supplied from Build it Knysna. This wonderful project was started in June of 2020 with the help of incredible volunteers in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic."
The story behind Soutana
This week Sparking Minds co-founder Raphael Ceillier described the collective's efforts to combat food security in the community as a "valiant but not sustainable effort" during the 2020 Covid-19 lockdown restrictions. "We started organising food parcels for communities around Knysna, for the first couple of weeks this was thriving and helping a lot of people but it wasn't enough and our aim was to create a sustainable way of helping these communities,'' he told
"Our first garden was a former dumping site located in Concordia, which we transformed into 300 square metres of fenced fertile ground to grow on, and supply the soup kitchen which is situated right above the garden itself which fed hundreds of people a day. From there, we took on a second garden in White Location, which is now known as the Soutana food hub from the latest municipal press release. This garden was already demarcated but left in terrible condition and with no soup kitchen nearby," Ceillier explained.
''With the help of Streli Sikwati and her mother, who owned the property, we cleaned up and replanted their garden and set up a soup kitchen attached to it which fed hundreds of people during the lockdown. Our organisation and a few volunteers came together to create this garden. From the bags of compost we had to stuff in our cars to the blocks of concrete we used to level the terrain and the seeds that Mayford kindly sponsored, we got it up and running with a full-time gardener in charge of the development and upkeep.''
Successful soup kitchen
Ceillier also said the soup kitchen that they started at Soutana has been running ever since and has managed to feed hundreds of people in the nearby community. ''We support the kitchen every month with supplies and gas to cook three times a week, and slowly but surely they are reaping the benefits of having a massive vegetable garden next to them with the sustainable harvesting of amazing vegetables to assist in the feeding scheme,'' he said. He also expressed sincere gratitude towards ''the people responsible for making sure that our efforts weren't in vain and that continue to work with us to keep this project and soup kitchen going successfully, for the past two years now". He specifically extended thanks to Sharon Dreyer, Sam Lurie, Johan Gerber, BreedeGouritz Catchment Management Agency and Kate of Greenhearted.
In response to the Facebook comments, municipal spokesperson Christopher Bezuidenhoudt replied, "The press release is based on an item which served before Council on 27 May 2021 and its corporate services committee on 3 March 2022. The press release was in no way aimed at misrepresenting the facts, the municipality or past and current organisations involved."