Help a woman feed her family in South Africa

GlobalGiving Report: Quarter 2 (January – April 2022)

 Project name: Help a Woman Feed Her Family

 Overview

The food insecurity problem has exacerbated since the start of the Covid 19 pandemic. In addition to the 32.8% unemployment rates, 23% of South African households with children experienced hunger, and 70% of households relied on government grants by May 2021. Food insecurity has increased due to the escalating unemployment rate. In 2021, it was estimated that 2.5 million adults and 600,000 children were experiencing perpetual hunger, hunger every day or almost every day

The ‘Help a Woman Feed Her Family’ project addresses food insecurity by empowering women with agricultural skills to enable them plant food in their backyard gardens.  

Through the partnership with GlobalGiving formed in September 2021, Young Global Entrepreneurs was blessed by an opportunity to participate in the accelerator fundraising campaign to raise funds towards the Help a woman Feed Her Family project. YGE wishes to sincerely all those who have donated to the project for their generous support. The funds donated have been used to start vegetable gardens for two beneficiaries from Vereeniging, a suburb located 50Km South of Johannesburg.

• Beneficiary 1: A widow raising two children, but also interested in helping other women in the area. She has some knowledge on growing vegetables.
• Beneficiary 2: A woman running an orphanage. 

Activities accomplished

Training of beneficiaries

• Training is an ongoing process. The focus has been on management of pests and fungi.
• Meeting with government officials in the community to introduce the project to the community

 Setting up vegetable gardens

• Acquiring of watering material
• Transplanting of seedlings
• Planting more seeds
• Maintaining  the gardens through control of pests and fungal diseases

Outcomes

• The vegetables harvested including butternut, pumpkins, spinach, onions have helped women feed their families.
• The women also managed to sell the surplus to earn an a small income.

 Monitoring and evaluation (M&E)

• The beneficiaries are visited once a fortnight to monitor the gardens.  

 Challenges encountered

• Management of pests and fungal diseases.
• Weather challenges, especially the falling of heavy hailstorms.
• Building relationships with government partners is slow as the Covid-19 pandemic restrictions slowed down the process.

 Conclusion

• The current beneficiaries are very grateful and excited about the opportunity.
• YGE will greatly appreciate any donation from you the donor, to help support this worthy cause.
• YGE needs to raise more funds to support more women

 Planned activities for Quarter 3

• Meeting with government and community stakeholders to establish relationships to improve the project.
• Continue with training and monitoring
• Continuing to fundraise though GlobalGiving and other ways

Links:

• Search for us on google
• Search for us on Facebook
• Search for us on Linkedin