Designing Hope has developed in 2011 a first pilot garden highlighting techniques of agroecology and permaculture in Piggs Peak, Swaziland. The success of this pilot garden encouraged Designing Hope to duplicate this initiative and link it to a pedagogical action.
Designing Hope benefited from close links with schools in Swaziland (support of orphans and disadvantaged children in 14 schools since 2011) and with the regional hospital (food distribution to HIV patients since 2005), that helped identify the beneficiaries for this extension of the project and organize the follow up.
Today a team of 6 people is in charge of training, and maintening the gardens. They work with school teachers and 240 volunteers children.They are also in charge of two community gardens, and a demonstration garden at the hospital.
In order to quickly produce vegetables in the garden, a nursery has been set up in the office of Fundzisa Live Association, located near Macambeni. The plants can be grown with better control of the watering needs, and with better … Read More
The Macambeni Garden, made available by the city of Piggs Peak to Fundzisa Live, the local partner of Designig Hope in Piggs Peak, presented a challenge in terms of soil preparation. Indeed, this sloping ground had been digged on part … Read More
One of the first steps in APAF’s agroforestry training in Southern Africa was to prepare the nursery for seed sowing. This required identifying local fertilizer trees similar to the seeds to be planted, in order to recover soil near the … Read More
During the winter, Swaziland has a dry climate, with sunny days, and quite cold nights. Cabbage, spinach, and salad grow well in these climatic conditions. In this garden at Hlohlo Ame Primary School, crop residues from corn have been used … Read More
During the training given by APAF International, Pascal Humbert has been searching for fertilizer trees in the Piggs Peak region. He quickly identified the Leuceana. The Leuceana is a great asset in agroforestry: it fertilizes the soil that nourishes it, … Read More
Below the garden of Macambeni, a wet area offers accessible water for the garden. In order to facilitate the collection, a small staircase is dug in the slope of the ground, and a small pool allows the water to be … Read More
The first step in taking over Macambeni’s garden consisted in clearing it. Dry grasses, cuts of trees and bushes were recovered to form a compost prepared under a garden tree. The soil extracted below a swamp was used to enrich … Read More
In the space of 2 years, Chaya’s 20 cm cut has become a real bush (right in the photo), which provides leaves for cooking, and can be generously duplicated itself for other projects. This month, cuttings were sent to South … Read More
Since 2012, Designing Hope develops permaculture garden in Southern Africa, to help population becoming self sufficient. This video presents a garden in the isolated village of Bulembu, hosting an orphanage. This garden, developed by a team of 6 women trained … Read More
