Our Community Garden Water Project

We’ve formally begun the process of improving the water-delivery system for Zombodze’s community garden. This kind of project begins with a series of community meetings, and the first meeting has been held. We’re now exploring the various approaches with stakeholders (mostly mothers who are active in the garden) and gathering information about two potential water source (their cost-benefit, long-term sustainability, and broader community support for each).

We drafted a letter to express the consensus of those attending the first meeting, and to get a few key community leaders singed up to the cause. It provides a good overview of the project, so I’ve copied it here:

May 18, 2009

Subject: Zombodze Community Garden Water Delivery System Renovation

To whom it may concern:

We, the undersigned, would like to formally express our active support and involvement in renovating the water delivery system for Zombodze-Ngwane’s community garden. This community-initiated project is vital to the proper functioning of the garden, which has suffered from dwindling participation for years due to its unreliable water supply. We hereby recognize that an improved water delivery system is very much in need, and that there is sufficient community interest in rehabilitating the garden to warrant sponsorship of this project.

17 years ago, when the current water delivery system was installed, participation in the Zombodze community garden swelled. Its plots provided both food and income to over 50 local homesteads. Shop owners from all over the Nhlangano area came to our garden to purchase produce and local families had a variety of fresh vegetables in their kitchen, even during the dry season. But by the late 1990s a series of events, both natural and manmade, undermined the dam and the piping supplying the garden’s spigots with water. As the water dried up, so did participation, and so did the funding needed to maintain what was left of the weakened delivery system.

Today the majority of participants still maintaining year-round plots are widows and their children or grandchildren, together representing about 10 local homesteads. For the last decade these women and children have watered their crops by using open trenches to divert water into the garden spigots, and by carrying buckets of water from local streambeds. But this method has proven increasingly unreliable, burdensome, and unsustainable for supporting even this modest number of garden participants. A renovation is needed.

There are still components of the previous water delivery system that can be utilized, most notably the underground piping and spigots within the garden fences. Since these existing elements offer us a variety of cost-efficient approaches to securing reliable water for the garden, we support a renovation project that makes proper use of them.

We share three general goals for our community garden, all of which require an exclusive, reliable water delivery system. The first goal is to raise participation levels back up to 50 or more Zombodze homesteads. The second goal is to increase the numbers of local children and youth actively participating in the garden. The third goal is to see the establishment of a new Community Garden Committee, comprised of participating gardeners, whose charge it will be to oversee and maintain all the components of the renovated water delivery system. This committee will help ensure that the difficulties of the past are not repeated.

It is time once again to make our community garden an important resource for income and food in Zombodze, and we hereby endeavor to raise the support and funding necessary to make that happen. We ask you to join us in this important effort, and we thank you in advance for your support.

Respectfully,

Rachel Nsibandze, Chairperson Bheki Ngwenya, Indvuna Simanga Mdluli, Bucopho
Zombodze Community Garden Zombodze Inkhundla Zombodze Chiefdom

Johannes Ndlangamandla, MP Timothy Cook, Volunteer Jamie Cook, Volunteer
Zombodze Inkhundla US Peace Corps US Peace Corps

So that's the letter.

Some of you have already generously expressed an interest in partnering with us on this project, and we really appreciate it. We’ll need all the help we can get! This will likely be the most expensive single project we attempt while here, and though it doesn’t seem like much by US standards, it’s a lot by Swazi standards. We won’t have a useful cost estimate until a water source has been chosen, but it’s safe to say that the project will likely run between $2500 and $3500 US dollars.

As the community’s decision-making process moves forward, we’ll be applying for a Peace Corps Partnership Program (PCPP) posting, and that’s how you’ll be able to donate. Our project will eventually be posted on the PCPP website where anyone can contribute directly to its overall cost; once all the money is raised then PCPP will send us the full funds to begin the work.

In the meantime, if you have questions or just want to tell us you’re interested in being a part of this effort, then cool—it really helps our planning to know the level of support out there-- send me an email and I’ll happily reply: cooktimothy@hotmail.com.