A helping hand from students to farmers

Students from the University of Johannesburg bring about change for the farming industry in Soweto.

Farming is well known as the growing of crops and raising livestock. but the definition is not only surrounded in that context alone, farming also has a focus in ensuring that a village is raised from the dust with or without a perfect or pleasing background. in my time when i worked with my group which was named in a tsonga word saying Akhanani which meant,"building each other" we found out the importance and need that farmers had when they started involving themselves in small scale farming. many people had no jobs in the farmed we had our project constructed. Many young lives remain unemployed and their only way into making sure that they get something to it was by making sure that they invest their efforts in the farm to help their young growing siblings and parents who no longer had the power to do it for themselves. The project taught me that there are many ways in which one could avoid famine because some of the vegetables that were produced out of the farm were took to the local markets or would be sold to neighbors and the like. that then meant people were getting double the benefits, food and money at the same time.

Challenges that farmers had to face were the biggest barrier to their success...

waking up in the morning having no hope of getting extra or new resources was the most painful and big burden that was faced by the farmers. They once were promised and came to an agreement with one of the ruling political parties in the area that if they will get funding for each and everything that they needed, and yes they had a tank and electricity installed and a big container for safe keeping. the big problem was making sure that all the assets they got were maintained and functioned well. and in most times they failed keeping up to that standard of making sure that all things function as they also had to buy seeds and pay for water. some would say to us that they make sure that the money comes straight from their pockets and they up losing because they have people who come at night to steal their crops which leaves them selling to people at a lower rate or amount than that which they had in mind. After realisng that the farmers had all efforts ploughed in the farm, we made it a must for us to make sure that the funds they needed were going to be allocated to them and have the farm work in the right way. with the little information we had from them we went further to dig more about the farm and to our luck we got hold of one of the guys who were part and parcel of the party that promised to keep the farm running and they promised to do that once more. so in helping out from the project i was able to establish myself as a thoughtful leader who had a helping hand in changing someone else s life and putting a smile on their face. I also learned many educational skills which i can apply out of the academic environment.