Growing up in the gang-ridden suburb of Lavender Hill in Cape Town, life has not been easy for Merissa America, a grade six primary school pupil.
Living a stone’s throw away from a notorious “gang battlefield” in the heart of Lavender Hill, where countless innocent lives have been lost in the ongoing violence, she has witnessed conflict that adults would shy away from.
Aged 13, not only has she witnessed the almost-weekly gang shootings but experienced the strife first-hand when a known gangster in the area threatened her life.
“With so much gang fighting and shootings, it’s almost like a war. Some of the gangs even threaten children. I’ve been threatened by [a person] who wanted to shoot us because of a disagreement.”
Merissa, however, takes solace in a vegetable garden, known as a “peace garden”, which sprang up at her school a few months ago.
“This garden is like my therapist. I come here to nurture the plants and to talk to them about my feelings, both negative and positive. I find talking to plants very therapeutic and I find peace in this garden.”
The peace garden, started in July, is a project by the Whitaker Peace & Development Initiative (WPDI) — an international NGO that trains youth on peace-building and conflict-resolution in violent communities.
In partnership with various organisations such as the City of Cape Town, the department of social development and financial services company BNP Paribas, the NGO provides peace-building and entrepreneurship training on the Cape Flats.
Dr Chance Chagunda, the national head of programmes at WPDI, says the NGO “hopes to not only train people in the area to become peace ambassadors, but to teach entrepreneurial skills too, in an effort to effect real change, on both economic and social development levels”.
Chagunda said even though the organisation initially trained 41 youths from the Cape Flats in peace and conflict resolution, the number has grown to 320 as the peace ambassadors train more young people in their communities.
“We focus on areas where others are running away because of violence. Projects such as the peace garden allow people to put their differences aside and work together for the greater good of their community.”
As a way of promoting peace and development, one of the trained youth and peace ambassadors, Rui Solomon from Lavender Hill, and his wife Shandre Davids, started the peace garden.
Solomon, who also teaches peace and conflict resolution to grade four and five pupils at the school, hopes the vegetable garden will not only feed the hungry in the community but “bring healing to the traumatised community and restore dignity”.
“We teach these children peace in the classroom, but through this garden we want to bring a place of peace to them. A lot of children in this community have been through a lot at home and are carrying a lot of trauma, either from broken homes, drug abuse or gangsterism .
“The trauma is so much for some that they can’t even read. How can you teach a child who can’t even read? This garden is a place of peace where children can come and nurture a plant of their own ... that they can one day eat their own potato out of this garden. The idea is to get people to live off their gardens and even sell what they produce and become entrepreneurs.”
Solomon’s vision is to turn illegal dumping sites in the area into community gardens. “Inequality and hunger create violence and conflict. Turning those dumps into green spaces will not only feed more people in the community and address inequality, but will restore the dignity of the community and make it a beautiful place to live in,” Solomon said.
“I’ve had calls from ex-convicts who want to have their dignity restored, and when I asked one why he wanted to join, he told me that he’ll live much longer working in the garden than going back to gangsterism.”
Davids, 24, who personally dealt with internal conflict after an assault, said the one-year peace and conflict resolution programme had restored her.
“Living with anger and sadness all the time was horrible. It made me a bad mom and a bad wife and because I was filled with so much anger, the conflict within me turned me into someone I didn’t want to be. I didn’t know how to deal with my negative feelings. As a result I would shout at my children and there were constant quarrels at home.”
She said the programme and working in the garden had helped tremendously.
“There is something about touching the soil and plants that soothes the soul. This project has given my life a sense of purpose and peace, which I’m hoping to transfer to others through this garden.”
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