Freek Robinson. (Photo: Provided)
Since the end of the nineties, the pressure has grown stronger for rugby to transform in South Africa. The former Springbok Gert Smal was the coach in the Eastern Cape at that stage. I went there to do a story about his challenges.
In the Western Province there were already several candidates in the brown community who would qualify to play for the Springboks team. Most of these players were smaller in stature, agile and fast. But there were only a few black players and especially not big and heavy forwards.
Gert made it his mission to identify promising black players in the Eastern Province. He criss-crossed the province and tried to identify talent at schools everywhere. Such players would then be placed in specific schools where, in addition to the academic education, there were also good sports coaches and facilities – especially for rugby.
But his effort did not yield much. He couldn’t understand it and started researching. His finding was that a large part of the province’s residents follow a deficient and unbalanced diet from childhood. They simply do not get enough nutritious food. A child who is malnourished from birth has limited growth and this applies forever. Such a child can never catch up with his mental development and physical growth. That’s why there were no big props and other rugby forwards to be found.
The situation has probably improved somewhat since then. The reason for the state of affairs is of course the poor living conditions in the Eastern Cape (more so than in other provinces) which can again be traced back to poverty and hunger. At least one in ten people in South Africa experiences hunger every day. Almost one in three children suffers from limited growth (the English call it “stunted growth”).
The great tragedy is that this condition of limited development and growth is passed on by parents to their children. Thus the situation spirals downwards. Drastic intervention is needed. This involves improving the socio-economic conditions and the availability of sufficient and nutritious food. It is the duty of the state to do this; it is even prescribed in the Constitution. But it is of course a long and dedicated process. The state cannot do it alone. Civil society must step in and apply a simple solution. There is hope and there is a plan.
A former judge in the Constitutional Court, Yvonne Mokgoro, was put in charge of the social cohesion campaign by the minister of sport, art and culture in 2013. One of her first tasks was to start a project in Kimberley to get the local community and the farmers of the area to work together to grow vegetables. She said at the event that black people used to be farmers who simply grew vegetables on small patches of land. But due to the cramped conditions in informal settlements, the residents became consumers who were no longer independent farmers.
(Photo: Steven Barnard/Facebook)
That’s exactly the plan to reverse this process so that every citizen becomes a mini-producer who grows vegetables for his own family and even has enough left over to sell. The project “Garden of Life” is run by Steven Barnard. He teaches people how to make their own mini vegetable garden with an old car tire and a plastic 2 liter Coke bottle.
It involves a small space and briefly the following: The outer tire is placed on a piece of plastic and filled with a mixture of soil, compost and manure. The Coke bottle is cut in half widthwise, a bunch of holes are poked in and placed upright in the ground in the middle of the tire. Vegetable seedlings are then planted a palm apart in the circle around the Coke bottle. The seedlings are regularly watered through the Coke bottle. And behold! You have your own mobile mini vegetable garden. Little space is needed and if you have more space, you plant in a second or third band.
Steven and volunteers apply the project especially to schools. Children are taught from an early age how to be self-sufficient and follow a nutritious diet with their own vegetables. If you start doing the sums, it is amazing how you can make money from the mini-vegetable gardens. Take tomatoes for example:
One tomato contains about 100 seeds;
100 seeds make 100 plants; and
one plant yields 20 tomatoes.
If a tomato costs R5, one plant can produce R100 and
100 plants can give a yield of R10 000.
In practice, of course, it won’t work out just like that. But it’s a plan that has already proven to work. And within a week or three, the mini-farmer can stop hunger and live a healthier life. And possibly the Eastern Cape can produce more fresh, strong and solid rugby Springboks.
Steven Barnard can attend [email protected] be contacted.
