the other side of Riebeek Kasteel

While farmers and residents of Riebeek Kasteel are engaged in a public battle over pesticide health problems, a quiet revolution is taking place offscreen. This is an interaction of a different kind among not only farmers and townsfolk, but other community groups and the local prison.

I wrote in August this year about a community garden and food kitchen for the children of Riebeek Kasteel's poorer township. That programme is expanding, in a number of ways. While the programme is still struggling to obtain funding, the local Goedgedacht Agricultural Resource Centre has donated a water tank, Riebeek Cellars has offered to pump water to the garden to store in the tank, and the Department of Agriculture has provided fencing to keep the garden secure.

Getting all this set up and running takes labour, and that's where the prison comes in. Bridget Doyle, from the garden project, told me that the local police recognise the importance of projects such as this from the perspective of crime prevention, and they have been bringing together existing groups that are involved in community development, to create a coordinated plan so that they all can benefit from shared resources and reduced duplication of effort. One of these groups is from the prison.

Correctional Services runs the Group of Hope, which keeps inmates at this prison busy with activities like sewing, cooking and singing. As the community garden has been receiving weekly food donations from Malmesbury businesses Shoprite Checkers, Fruit & Veg, and For da Belly (a bakery), Bridget now has an arrangement to take the food to the prison, where the Group of Hope cooks it, and the cooked food is taken to the Saturday morning soup kitchen.

Not only that, but part of the land leased by the community garden has been set aside for the Group of Hope to set up their own garden to provide feedstock for their kitchen, and twice a week four inmates provide labour for the community garden while they work on theirs.

Others brought together by the police coordinator are the Valley Empowerment Project, the Women's Forum, a community worker from the ACVV, a government social worker, and the Riebeek Kasteel Steel Band Project.

The Steel Band, run by David Wickham for a number of years now, provides an opportunity for local children to develop music skills and confidence. The band also provides opportunities for the children to perform at local events such as the annual Olive Festival, and occasionally in Cape Town.