About SOIL FOR LIFE

Soil for Life is a Cape Town-based NGO which teaches people to grow their own food and it works with the premise – healthy soil, healthy plants, and healthy people.

Home and community food gardens are designed to maximise production in small spaces, to conserve water and to make use of all available resources that would otherwise end up in already over-burdened land-fill sites, and to avoid, at all costs, the need for artificial fertilisers and poisonous sprays.

Our work is, however, not just about gardening, and not just about food. It is also about ‘growing’ whole people who are able to help themselves on many fronts: survival, earning their own money, creating healthy families, improving values, dealing with inflation, problem-solving, developing creativity and resourcefulness, and building bridges of goodwill and understanding. It’s about whole people; food gardening provides food for the body, the mind and the soul.

Legal Status
Soil for Life started in 2002 as a Section 21 company (registration number 2002/020596/08). The company got granted the non-profit-organisation status (registration number 028-256).

Soil for Life’s financial year is from March 1st to February 28th and all our financials are audited regularly.

Vision
Our vision is to be a self-sustaining organisation which has a significant and positive impact on communities in the Western Cape.

We give people the skills and knowledge to grow their own food which empowers them to improve their health, their economic and social status, and to restore the balance in their own lives, in society and nature.

Mission
We educate and train people in organic food gardening using water-wise, low-cost, environment-friendly technologies and provide a support programme to ensure effective implementation.

Once a food supply is secured. people are provided with opportunities to create livelihoods through a range of activities associated with the garden.

The Team

Pat Featherstone (Director)

Dez Mynhardt (Operations Manager)

Belinda Kennedy (Admin Assistant)

Sandy Lewis (Fieldworker and Trainer)

Mildred Nyembezi (Fieldworker and Trainer)

Michael Valentine (Assistant Fieldworker)

Thando Matsila (Assistant Fieldworker)