Wholesome Initiatives to Get Involved With in and Around South Africa
Jakob SlabbertBy Sage & Sunday ///
If you're on the lookout for projects and initiatives to support and be a part of, look no further than our personally curated list of some of our all-time favourites. By the end of this blog post, you'll know exactly what's happening in and around the beautiful country of South Africa. Have a look at the list below to see what's out there.
Veld & Sea
Founder of Veld and Sea, Roushanna Gray is a wild food artist, foodie, and avid forager. She shares her passion for the edible landscape through immersive educational experiences, connection, and creativity. Inspired by the natural world around her, she has been working with the exciting and diverse wild flavors found in the mountains, veld, and gardens for the last 14 years. The wide range of delicious and nutritious culinary offerings from the beautiful inter-tidal rock pools along the South African coastline also plays a major role in her cooking and teaching. In 2019 she won the Spier Sustainability award at the Food XX and Eatout awards for her efforts to highlight South Africa’s local edible plant culture and to educate people on foraging as well as the Most Authentic African Experience award for recognition of excellence in the hospitality division by the Cape Town Experience Awards
Veld & Sea states that there is flavour, food, and medicine all around us, we just have to learn how to recognize it. Veld and Sea offer wild food foraging workshops, Interactive popup dinners, Adventure weekends, Nature inspired workshops, Curated experiences for corporate/brands/film, Travelling foraging workshops. One of Veld and Sea's happy visitors, Dave Meinert, says:
“Loved every moment and morsel spent with Veld and Sea Mermaids. If you want to experience a deep and lasting connection to earth and ocean go and meet these beautiful women. They are inspiring and so willing to share their precious knowledge, which we so need. Thank you for an incredible day.”
Join them tracking the edible landscape through the seasons with educational, immersive, and wildly delicious experiences. Based at the Good Hope Gardens Nursery in Cape Point,
Baz Art
Their organisation produces works of art for urban and rural public spaces, property developments, and refurbishments on behalf of private, corporate and publicly-owned entities as well as governments, embassies, city councils, humanitarian organisations, and charitable foundations.
Since 2016, IPAF has produced over 200 murals and has placed Cape Town at the forefront of street art and culture on the African continent. They state: "
"The event has attracted artists, both local and international, to create murals that invoke creative visual storytelling, revealing and reflecting the rich heritage that is present in the spaces that we inhabit, and provoking new thoughts, conversations, and public engagement."
Baz Art works with communities, schools, businesses and, a wide variety of other organisations, Baz Art uses art as a creative tool to promote public dialogue and engagement and furthermore to positively impact people’s physical, emotional and social environments.
By using street art as a tool to reflect and add to the distinct and unique characters of an area, public artworks often encourage local and international tourism, adding to an economic impact of creating and sustaining jobs, such as tour guiding, and further support of local businesses as well as a societal impact inclusion, pride, cohesion and security
Plasticity
Plasticity was founded in 2017 by Tessa O'Halloran In the small town of Graaff-Reinet in the Karoo, where she gives second chances to waste plastic. They create beautiful, useful high-quality products for everyday life and help to reduce the amount of (usable) waste material destined for landfills.
Tessa says that she sees waste materials differently. She believes waste is too valuable a resource to waste. Since 2017, plasticity has re-imagined waste materials and transformed them into functional everyday, upcycled products that add value to your everyday life.
She is inspired by the hopeful notion of neuroplasticity - our brain's ability to create new neural pathways in response to change and our ability to adapt in a positive manner to challenges. Tessa states:
"I think when faced with a challenge, we are presented with the opportunity to re-think, and potentially even thrive..."
Plasticity is based in the Eastern Cape, the province with the highest rate of unemployment, currently sitting at 47.1%, in the country and with the highest level of unemployment in the world. I believe we are uniquely positioned to make an impact in the Eastern Cape by creating opportunities for skills-based training, supporting local plastic recyclers, and giving second chances.
Viva Con Agua
Viva Con Agua South Africa is a non-profit organisation that is committed to ensuring that everyone around the world has access to clean drinking water and safe sanitation. They motivate individuals and organisations through universal languages like music, sports, and art, to take part in a process of positive societal change.
Viva con Agua supports universal access to sustainable W.A.S.H. services in South Africa. They support national service authorities and collaborate with other national non-profit organisations. They also implement projects ourselves. The human right to water and sanitation underpins all of our work. Their approach to ensuring that there is water for all is …connect with the help of committed and synergy-oriented partnerships, they bring our local supporters together, thereby developing a stable platform with leverage for initiating positive societal change. Viva South Africa states:
"Because a life without social involvement is a life without fulfillment. Inspire We inspire people to get involved creatively and enthusiastically with the global issue of water."
Sustainability is the explicit goal of our people-centered approach. Sustainability has numerous aspects. In the W.A.S.H sector, for consumers, sustainability principally comes down to the functioning of the water supply and sanitation infrastructure, i.e. by the consumer asking the straightforward question: “Does the tap or pump provide a reliable source of water or not?” Or, is the toilet clean?
Viva transforms communities by supporting wash projects worldwide, Viva con Agua drives a societal change as part of the water for all philosophy, and contributes time, money, and energy, thereby serving an overarching purpose! They focus on improving local communities’ self-reliance, social justice, and participatory decision-making. They also believe that economic growth does not contribute to sustainable human development on its own. Economic growth without the accompanying changes in social, political, and environmental values and practices favours the few and not the many.
Nude Foods
Nude Foods was founded in 2017 with the intention of offering South Africans an alternative way of shopping. Founder, Paul Rubin, reached frustration-breaking point with the amount of unnecessary single-use packaging being used by regular grocers, and so Nude Foods was born!
While they prefer to focus on the positive, they state that it’s important to acknowledge where we’re at so we can identify the potential for change.
"Our planet is on the precipice, with soaring temperatures; more than 5.2 trillion pieces of plastic choking our oceans, polluting our food and ruining undersea ecosystems; and landfills overflowing, poisoning our soils and affecting our health."
They continue by saying that It’s imperative that we work together to create change, regenerate and rebuild… and plastic is a major part of the problem we need to solve. The human population collectively creates over 300 million tonnes of plastic every year – that’s equivalent to the weight of the entire human race combined.
Nude foods say that while big industry players are a significant contributor to this figure, ordinary day-to-day consumers also have a massive role to play. By choosing to shop zero-waste, you’re voting for the world you want to see – as well as reducing your own impact. Beyond our personal use and misuse of plastic, every purchase also serves as a warning to the companies that still choose to use plastic in their production – as well as a celebration of those using alternative solutions. Zero-waste shopping eliminates all packaging from the equation, creating a closed-loop ecosystem where nothing goes to waste.
This goes beyond ‘sustainable’ packaging solutions – creating a truly waste-free, regenerative system.
Aya Africa
Their mission is to help empower Small and Medium Enterprises in Africa to uplift the continent's economy. For this reason, Aya works hard every day in continuously providing training and support for our vendors to ensure a fruitful partnership. High-quality, good-looking products made by some of Africa’s top creators. Find a gift, some unique art, and good people on AYA Africa. Explore products from RSA, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, and more.
Aya is committed to the quality of the products they offer. They ensure that each and every brand they on-board meet their rigorous standards. Aya Africa states:
"We understand that customers come first and work very hard to resolve each and every query received regarding our products and services."
Aya Africa is a group of humans driven by the need to uplift other humans. They don't just think change can happen. They state that they know it must. So they are taking the wheel to accelerate the long due rise of Africa. They're here to build, pixel by pixel, a new world view of the African Continent.
Join them as they explore the continent.
Plushi
Plushi is an online, zero waste, vegan sushi restaurant from Cape Town, South Africa. Through Their creative experimentation with vegan and Asian cuisine, their aim is to uncover the very best plant based sushi and deliver it to your doorstep.
They have gone to great lengths to ensure that every part of our packaging is 100% sustainable and plastic free. The inner divider is lined with PLA which is a moisture proof lining made entirely from plant based materials. This makes their entire box compostable.
Plushi states that veganism is the most sustainable diet.
"The production of plant based foods is a more efficient use of resources, as it requires less energy from fossil fuels as well as less land and water. Cutting meat and dairy out of your diet can reduce your dietary carbon footprint by up to 75%. For this reason, all items on our platters are strictly vegan."
They also go on to say that Zero Waste is essentially the ability to leave no physical trace. Put simply it is being able operate without anything ending up in a landfill as 'waste'. Therefore, their food waste is first minimised through creative use of whole vegetables before being made into compost and everything else is recycled. Their preorder system ensures they never over purchase certain ingredients and also means that they are able to drop off all orders in the shortest route possible which minimises their carbon footprint.
Skimmelberg
Skimmelberg produces and sells Organic Buchu and Rooibos tea products, locally and internationally. They are a family-owned company rooted in the local community with extensive experience gained over generations in the production of Buchu and Rooibos products.
One of their principal goals is to restore and maintain connectivity across the landscape, through voluntary stewardship partnerships with landowners. In response, they have assigned more than 90% of the land of the farm to conservation, and as a result, after entering into a stewardship agreement with the public conservation body CapeNature, the Skimmelberg Nature Reserve was brought into being.
Within their group of companies, they are one of the first to receive a Buchu Benefit Sharing Agreement, with the San and the Khoi-Khoi, as the traditional knowledge holders of the various beneficial uses of the Buchu plant. Skimmelberg says:
"A trip to Skimmelberg is a journey into organic farming at its best. Skimmelberg's farming operations take place on the doorstep of the Skimmelberg Nature Reserve. To see the real magic behind what makes this totally organic product range so special, you have to visit the farm."
You can join the Skimmelberg team at the office for a tea tasting. Enjoy exploring the smells, tastes, and sensations, before delving into the pioneering world of Buchu-based products. If anything grabs your fancy, browse the Skimmelberg shop, stocked with the farm's full range of products.
