_______Cleaning, Greening and Saving Initiative________

Thanks to funding from Makana Municipality, as part of the Makana 200 Year Celebration, RU Green in partnership with ??the Makana and Rural Eastern Cape Regional Centre of Expertise in Education for Sustainable Development (RCE) embarked upon a project, entitled Cleaning, Greening and Saving, that would look back to traditional and indigenous amaXhosa practices, and lessons learnt throughout the history of Makana, in order to tackle present day issues of food security, energy savings, waste management, nutrition,  climate change, poverty alleviation, cleaning and greening, soil biodiversity remediation and water quality remediation through phytoremediation. The project began in April 2012 and consists of three separate but interrelated aspects, which jointly tackle the above issues??. 

The following is a brief description of the project. For a more detailed description which brings in the scientific, indigenous knowledge, and other aspects, and which includes a comprehensive overview of the project, please click Cleaning, Greening and Saving Initiative

The first phase of the project is a job-creating intiative that involves working with a youth cooperative to reintroduce the practice of composting in households  throughout the broader Grahamstown community this helps to reduce waste going to the dump and to rehabilitate soils throughout Grahamstown, among other benefits. The second phase involves working with the communities to promote vegetable gardening and treeplanting where composting has taken place. Among other things, this promotes local food security and helps households create financial dependence through families being able to grow their own food. The third and linked aspect of the project is that we are employing local ladies to make hotbags. Hotbags are two bags which are used in cooking to save electricity and  promote slow-cooking, which preserves nutrients in food. For more information on the hotbags click here‌