Greening of The Nation Programme

 The SANBI identified Lukholo Training and Development Services, a BEE company to receive the tender to implement the project. This initiative seeks to green impoverished areas that lack green community space and school gardens. These are impoverished areas like the Cape Flats and parts of the Overberg Region where the project operates. Community public spaces are targeted in these areas, including other public spaces such as parks, hospitals, clinics, day care centers and police stations. Greening schools specifically is one of the project’s major goals and fruit and vegetable gardens are planted to support school nutrition programmes. Developing indigenous gardens designed for teaching purposes also enhances environmental education at the schools. Another project aim is to create job opportunities for local people from these impoverished communities. The community members are provided with skills-based training that will allow them opportunities to either enter the job market or access further education. Two nurseries have also been developed in Khayelitsha and Kleinmond that not only act as a source of employment for trained workers but is also a source of plants and trees for the project’s activities. Partnerships were brokered with the Department of Labour who provided training, the Western Cape Education Department (WCED), the Urban Renewal Programme, Rainbow Group of companies that employed 80 people over a two-year period, BP South Africa that sponsored water-tanks for schools and community projects, Sikhula Agricultural Training and other national universities that have assisted in further training.

Innovation
Greening of the Nation Programme shows the importance of taking environmentalism further by integrating green issues with poverty and nutrition, job creatio,n and education in order to be a viable solution to combating the poverty. Strategically, it draws in a number of relevant partners to enhance the scale of the operation covering a vast area of the Cape Flats.

Effectiveness
36 schools in the Western Cape have been greened which entails developing 600m2 of indigenous gardens, complemented by 30 fruit trees, and in addition to this 700 indigenous trees were planted at the school project sites. 2385 indigenous trees have been planted in Kleinmond, Khayelitsha, Mitchell’s Plain and Lavender Hill as part of the community space greening. 2-5 educators from the 36 schools have been provided with teaching development workshops to incorporate their school garden into the school curriculum. In 2007 six educators from the province were funded to do the Rhodes University Participatory Course in Environmental Education (NQF Level 6) and five have done a similar course at Durban University of Technology.  

Poverty Impact
221 workers have been employed, earning R39 per day. 24 workers have been trained in Business Skills, Life Skills, Seedling Production, Health and Safety and Landscape Maintenance.  

Sustainability
The total cost for the project is R3 210 000, solely funded by the DEAT. BP South Africa has contributed R175 000 and the Department of Labour provided the training worth R1 million. The project funding has been secured until March 2008 and additional funding is being produced.

Replication
The Greening of the Nation Programme is a national programme that has been implemented in all nine provinces of South Africa.

Partnerships
•    Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism
•    Lukholo Training and Development Services
•    Urban Renewal Programme
•    Western Cape Education Department
•    BP South Africa
•    Rainbow Group of companies
•    Department of Transport and Public Works
•    Department of Labour
•    Sikhula Agricultural Training