Food Commons Projects

We are an NPC based in Muizenberg, Amava Oluntu, working together with the Muizenberg CAN, supporting a youth led group in Vrygrond, called Vrygrond United 4 Change.

The group is comprised of 30 individuals, from a wide cross section of individuals, with a core leadership group of 4 individuals that we work very closely with. We are supporting them with:

• Fundraising, administrative support, financial management, and strategy development.

• Together, we are supporting and mentoring 15 of the 30 kitchens in Vrygrond. Each kitchen has a team of 4 or 5 individuals running it. We issue them permits, provide up to date information on legal, health and safety, keep them stocked with food and supplies to enable their smooth running, together we are developing a stock taking and ordering system. Each kitchen is providing an average of 150 meals per day. (15 x 150 = 2250 meals per day)

• We offer mentorship and coaching in entrepreneurial development & leadership skills (private sector and False Bay College are supporting this)

• We are paralleling the kitchens with a gardening movement, starting with Grow Bag installations at each kitchen, whilst looking for larger tracts of land for bigger scale growing.

• 4 young women in the group have started a Dignity Pack drive - supplying sanitary pads and toiletries to the women in the community, and they aim to grow this movement to involve education and conversations about womanhood and menstrual health. One of the mobilisers is a Social Auxillary Worker - she has a vision of mentoring young women to grow this field, as she feels very strongly that Social Workers should come from within a community, not from outside.