Joburg Parish Eco Activists Extend a Hand to Pretoria Vegetable Gardeners

by Daluxolo Moloantoa · January 10, 2024

The Bryanston Catholic Church Veggie Gardeners Network recently took a sightseeing visit to the network’s vegetable gardening projects in Mmakau Village, north of Pretoria.

The network, in conjunction with the Sr Kizito Tseleng Home Farms, assists home-based vegetable growers in the village with the provision of water tanks and seeds amongst other interventions.

Judy Stockill, a former editor of Archdiocesan News in Johannesburg, and Dillie Jayakody represented the network on the visit. Speaking to The Southern Cross, Judy outlined the origins of the network, and how it has grown to support home vegetable farmers in Mmakau Village and in six other projects in both Gauteng and the North-West province.

“The Bryanston Catholic Church Veggie Gardeners Network started in 2021 under the auspices of the eco-justice function of the Justice and Peace Commission at our church, the parish of the Church of the Resurrection in Bryanston, in Johannesburg.

Our fellow parishioner Cecilia Moloantoa, after seeing what we were doing in terms of rainwater harvesting, requested the network to extend its services to her home village in Mmakau.

We made the means for some villagers to receive water tanks. Out of that initiative they came to realise that they could go beyond consuming the harvested water for home use, but to also use it to grow vegetable gardens, she said.

Besides the Mmakau Village project, the network is also involved in the provision of necessary assistance in five other areas. “At the Thabo Mbeki informal settlement, in the north of Johannesburg, a fellow parishioner of ours called Jeff Lopez runs an eco-centre there.

It includes a community hall built out of eco bottles, and he has also trained a local guy called Gideon on worm and chicken farming,” she said.

The visit to the veggie gardens in Mmakau coincides with the network’s intention to build future self-sustainability in all the projects it is involved with.

“Part of this visit is to continue with our investigation into the viability of affordable gardening tunnels. Although we were not responsible for them, we’ve seen gardening tunnels work wonders at another project we’re involved with, the Mother of Peace project in Northriding in Johannesburg.

In the long run, we’d like to see the home veggie gardeners in Mmakau, Hamanskraal, and everywhere else where we’re involved to take off without us in future,” she said.

The Bryanston Catholic Church Veggie Gardeners Network is an extension of the Bryanston church’s Laudato Si implementation function.