Siyakhana Awarded 'Best Community Project'

The Siyakhana Initiative's Permaculture Food Garden has been awarded "Best Innovation Project" and "Overall Community Project Winner" at the Gauteng Department of Agriculture and Rural Development's 2011 MTK Awards.This prestigious award recognises Siyakhana as one of the premier urban agriculture projects in Gauteng. 

The Mama Tshepo Khumbane "MTK" Awards acknowledge, reward, and highlight initiatives in Gauteng of which seek to: promote sustainable use of natural resources; encourage communities in their duty to care for the natural resource base; promote income generation activities using natural resources sustainably; encourage community initiatives and innovations on best natural resource management practices; and share technologies and experiences on natural resource management. Siyakhana staff members Mhlangabezi Vundla, Community Engagement Manager and Luxon Mudzimiri, Permaculture Specialist received the awards on behalf of Siyakhana. 

The Siyakhana Permaculture Food Garden, located in Johannesburg's Bezuidenhout Park, was started in 2005 by Prof. Michael Rudolph, Director of the Wits Health Promotion Unit. Siyakhana was established to provide healthy food to early childhood development centers in Joburg's inner city. In addition to organic fruit and vegetable production, Siyakhana is a site of permaculture training and education, a demonstration of sustainable water management techniques, and is home to a state of the art ecologically built field office and ablution block. 

The garden is a project of the Siyakhana Initiative for Ecological Health and Food Security, a division of the Wits Health Consortium. Siyakhana works to improve food security, increase access to nutritious and sustainably grown foods, raise awareness of the impact of ecological health promotion, and provide opportunities for sustainable livelihood development in South Africa. Siyakhana undertakes research, policy advocacy and community-based programmes to achieve our goal of promoting ecological health. We offer training to members of the public interested in urban permaculture gardening, vegetables, mushrooms and medicinal herbs production, nutrition, health promotion and renewable technologies.

More information about Siyakhana is available at www.siyakhana.org