#TrailblazerImpact – Mashadi Building Community Gardens
At the enke Forum in December 2018, Mashadi Madiga noted two issues affecting her community that she really wanted to tackle – (1) high unemployment levels and (2) high levels of hunger with many of her peers coming to school without having had breakfast.
For her Community Action Project (CAP), Mashadi’s idea was to start a garden on a plot, giving a few people the space to plant different vegetables to sell and/or donate to supply the school feeding scheme. She managed to get 5 people to work on a garden at the back of her parents’ house. Then she looked to expand by getting a larger plot of land from her municipality. Unfortunately, with 2019 being an election year, it was difficult to meet with the local mayor (and the mayor’s office) to present her proposal to get a piece of land to start the garden. For some this would mean the end of their effort due to frustration. But, Mashadi did not accept defeat and rather looked at how else she could make the community garden a reality. Finally, she decided to expand the CAP by starting a vegetable garden at her
school.
In the 9 months participating in the Trailblazer Program, Mashadi’s has achieved some great things:
- – Starting a vegetable garden at her school: working with and supported by the Representative Council of Learners (RCL). Vegetables from the garden are donated to the school’s feeding scheme
- – Engaging more schools: Realising that to scale her impact, she would need to have more schools engaged and that she would not be able to do it alone and successfully manage. She did some outreach activities and managed to convince RCLs of other schools to start their own school gardens.
- – Benefited 65 People in her Community: Beneficiaries include the children at the JH Phahla School for the Blind, and, with each activity she does, the number of beneficiaries is set to keep growing.
- – Continuing work on the big picture goal: Mashadi has approached the circuit of her community to look for a bigger space in her community to plant more vegetables and create employment for those who are interested in agriculture.
- – Registered her own NGO: In July 2019, Mashadi registered her own non-governmental organisation named Woman Empowerment. With her organisation she plans to provide motivation, guidance and leadership for women in her community. Mashed has obtained a tax certificate and opened a bank account for the organisation she has recently established.
Beyond the Trailblazer Program, Mashadi is a leader at her school as the President of her school’s Representative Council of Learners. Mashadi is truly a diligent young leader and trailblazer paving the way for effecting meaningful change in her community!
We celebrate her and other Trailblazers from the Class of 2018 for their community action projects and work to create meaningful change on the social issues they care about.
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We would like to provide additional resources to young leaders, like Mashadi, who have completed enke Programs and are now part of our Alumni Network. Contribute to our 2019 individual giving campaign project for the September GlobalGiving Accelerator – Link 3000+ South African Youth to Opportunity!
