The WOF Food Security Organic Nursery Project is part of the organisation’s strategic response to addressing the basic needs of participants and reaching out to their families and communities. The project aims to promote sustainable organic food production to help improve food security.

The long-term plan focuses not only on vegetable gardening but on empowering participants with skills to develop, maintain and run nurseries and gardens as an entrepreneurial opportunity.

The Food Security Project began in 2019 with the training of nine Social Development Practitioners (SDPs) and 76 participants in organic gardening and nurseries. The pilot project was held in Elliot, Eastern Cape, and the SDPs learnt the basics of gardening, relations with nature and food security as a natural system to sustain life.

The training taught participants about the circle of life – how human beings connect to nature and live through the balanced sharing of the environment and resources. Theoretical and practical information guided each participant to be able to transfer knowledge to their own families.

Participants began training their children in gardening and the children enjoyed working with the soil and relating their learning directly to their school natural sciences curriculum.