Newsletter #34 New year – new project: a win-win for everyone!

Jan 19, 2022 | Newsletter Archive

­ In December 2021 we started our pilot experiment with Backyard Farm at Kingdom Kids Edu-Care in Sir Lowry’s Pass township. Since then, buckets filled with soil and chili seedlings have been watered and cared for by Zelna, our on-site principal and her children.

­ Dear Friends of Golden Sunbeams

We trust you all arrived alive and kicking in the new year, with lots of good resolutions and ideas for exciting projects. We would like to report about our latest, sustainable project, as follows:

Last October we met food and hospitality xpert, Dominic, and food technologist, Leila, from Backyard Farms. They are the founders of a small food factory for sauces in Stellenbosch.

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Their business model consists of promoting the employment of women in the townships: It works like this: Women who have a previously unused courtyard at their house are provided with compost, fertiliser and chilli seedlings and receive basic training in cultivating the plants.

Backyard Farms then buys back the chilli harvest, processes it into making their sauces, and selling the sauces online, in markets or through select retailers. The following applies here: the more sauces that are sold, the higher the need for chillies, the more income the women generate. You will find more information on the website www.backyardfarms.co.za.

Dominic presented his new project and the different sauce products to us in October last year.
We became so enthusiastic about this innovative win-win project that we decided to extend it to our kindergartens, starting with our kindergarten Kingdom Kids Edu-Care in Sir Lowry’s Pass township.

No sooner said than done: in December we bought ten 20 litre buckets which Backyard Farms filled for us free of charge with soil and chilli seedlings for our pilot project. We delivered these 10 buckets to Zelna, our principal in Sir Lowry’s Pass. For them and their children, the motto is now: water, cultivate, harvest and sell.

Kingdom Kids kindergarten teachers are enthusiastic about the new pilot project.

In addition to a purely economic reason – Backyard Farms buys back the ready-to-harvest chilli peppers – this project has the educational goal of the children taking responsibility for the plants and influencing the success of the harvest through their care. This also provides motivation, success and happiness for them.

We would like to roll out the project “Growing partner Golden Sunbeams e.V.” and extend it to more of our kindergartens. This way we can quickly determine which kindergartens have a “green thumb” and should be supported by providing more buckets with seedlings or, ideally if possible, by creating proper beds on the grounds of the kindergarten.
Our principal Zelna from the Kingdom Kids kindergarten in Sir Lowry’s Pass township and her kindergarten teachers are very happy that we have chosen them for our pilot experiment.

Backyard Farms partners are already growing free herbs and other vegetables to help expand their range, which is something we’d also like to explore at Golden Sunbeams.
It could be a promising perspective for Golden Sunbeams e.V. We will continue to update you on the development of this new project in our future newsletters.

Greetings from a summery hot Cape Town

Bernd & Britta

PS: A big thank you to Dominic’s wife, Anna, who is a professional photographer and gave us many of these beautiful pictures free of charge.