- Junior City Council Mayor Miquel Meyer initiated a vegetable garden project at Square Hill Primary School to combat food insecurity in his community.
- The garden, sponsored by RegenZ, aims to provide fresh produce for students and local residents.
- Meyer also plans to offer academic tutoring and organize drives for toiletries and non-perishable food.
Seeing the effects of food insecurity in his community spurned newly elected Junior City Council (JCC) Mayor Miquel Meyer, a Grade 11 learner from Zwaanswyk High School in Tokai, into action.
The JCC consists of 50 learners, in Grades 10 and 11, from various schools across the city’s 116 wards.
People’s Post caught up with the passionate young leader at the Square Hill Primary School vegetable garden project he initiated in Retreat on Friday 26 July.
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“What I’ve realised is that food insecurity, poverty and illiteracy are major issues, especially in Steenberg and the coloured-prone areas. So, my main focus for my term in office is on food insecurity, hence the garden project,” he said.
Questioned on what inspired him to apply for the JCC, the teenager commented that it was a platform where he could make a difference.
“I never knew what the JCC was but then I saw a post on Instagram and thought how many people from our communities were not aware of such things,” he explained. “It also provides me with a platform to actually give back; something I have always been involved in is community outreach.”
Tutoring
In addition to assisting with spearheading the garden project, Meyer will also be offering tutoring to primary school learners.
“I am offering tutoring for academics to learners of Square Hill Primary School and this is the first step into something that could grow into something bigger,” he said. “I’m also hosting toiletry and non-perishable drives that will be used for people in our community.”
The teenager says he has already learnt valuable lessons such as “lots of rejection” while trying to set up the garden project.
“I’ve called so many organisations and companies to help with sponsoring the seedlings for the garden but I was probably rejected close to 50 times in the past three months,” said Meyer.
Alex Platt, from the agricultural services company RegenZ who sponsored the soil and seedlings for the project, answered the call for help.
“We brought along 200 tomato seedlings and 200 cabbage seedlings and will be dropping off a drum of our bio-stimulants in three weeks’ time because, during the first two weeks, it won’t need any liquid, it will only need sunshine and water,” said Platt.
RegenZ works with various potato varieties, servicing small-holder farmers by procuring locally sourced mainly organic products that promote soil health.
“We are very new in the small-holder farmer type of environment because we normally work with large-scale commercial farmers but we see the need for smaller farmers and the market and think we have access to the right raw materials to supply local farmers, small-holder growers and school community programmes,” he added.
Testing soil
In addition to contributing to the garden school programme, RegenZ will be testing new soil.
“We want to see if we can get some kind of trial data back on the products,” said Platt. “One of the new products we are working on is an organic-based fertiliser, so we have one set of potting soil which comes from a local manufacturing company and then we have two variations.
“If we get trial data back that our soil did better than other soil, then it is a benefit.”
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Meanwhile, Sasha Hartle, a Grade 6 teacher who will be overseeing the garden project at the school, said the garden will be beneficial to the school and community.
“The herbs and vegetables can be used to make soup as well as different pots of food to help the learners who do not always have a warm meal,” she said. “We also have sandwiches at the school every day for the more than 900 kids. So, the garden will help with that.”
Hartle added that while a school vegetable garden failed in the past, they were back to making gardening a success.
“We are back into gardening,” she said. “On Arbor Day, the Rotary Club of Constantia also donated trees to the school, which we planted as well as vegetable boxes and seedlings residents and ex-teachers donated to the school.”
