UPSKILL – Health (Healing + Food)

This Project has many levels, including teaching healthy food growing, healthy diet and traditional plant medicine education. The project has already started with a food growing project at the Primary school with Ronaldo Claassen one of the teachers and a Member of UPSKILL Barrydale.

The seedling project has begun and involves teaching Primary school kids to make compost and plant and grow their own veggie seeds. The program plans to plant the seeds in a community food garden at the BF Oosthuizen school with the help of Gordon from Love in a Bowl and make it part of their school curriculum. This is leading to setting up 6 more community food gardens in the community, with mentors like Chris Griffen that is teaching the students to make compost, germinate seeds and do companion planting.

Nicole Huke that makes planter boxes and together with Gordon is teaching how to grow veggies in circular community gardens for the community food kitchens. We have Gillian Parenzee a member of UPSKILL Barrydale that has her own plot of land, where she is teaching how to grow traditional medicinal plants and create healing remedies and shall be doing workshops in permaculture.

Linzi Thomas has been making comfrey oil and will be teaching how to grow it and how to use the this amazing healing oil. There are many other medicinal plants to cultivate that are used within the community to heal people. This knowledge is taught by Gerswin and Juda our Khoi Sack people, as well as by the Traditional Khoi elders that know all the plant medicine knowledge. This to can also be shared with tourists to create more business opportunities in the community.

Giving people the knowledge of a proper diet can help them reverse diabetes and other health ailments. We are also sharing kombucha and kafir in the community to help with good gut health.

What we do need are Heirloom seeds and more facilitators to help with doing workshops.

Drug rehabilitation and Trauma release are planned as future programs.