the SEED story

The Seeding Futures youth program grew out of direct requests from school leavers for further education and green jobs. Learners that participated in SEEDs initial Outdoor Classroom Program, aware of the importance of regeneration, were looking for work in the local green economy.

The program was piloted and developed through working with 86 Cape Flats youth, over five years. This was then proved through a three-year program that graduated 300 youth with monitoring and evaluation skills to map the impact.

We have seen the life changing effects of our training and how it first changes the inner landscape of youth which enabled them to make changes in their external lives: 89% of graduates who have gone on to implement resilience in their own homes and for their friends and family, 60% finding employment, as well as 8 green enterprises being ignited every year.

We now seek to really establish this training at SEEDs Abundance Centre in Mitchells Plain, while fuelling our Alumni ignite programs for greater reach as well as work and enterprise opportunities.

Permaculture is a way of thinking. It is in essence an ecological design process which can be applied to all areas of human life. The word is a combination of the words ‘permanent’ and ‘agriculture’ and the movement has evolved to incorporate everything from agriculture to personal well-being.

In Permaculture we believe that the problems carry the solutions. This lens allows us to see huge opportunity in our many societal problems.

When we consider the problems:
- 50% Matric students drop out
- 66% youth unemployment
- 69% of people in low economic communities live below the food poverty line
- The Climate Crises and economic recession threaten wellbeing
- Youth are let down by inferior education

We have a lot of work to do to build the resilience of our historically marginalised communities that already struggle with poverty, hunger, lack of energy, water and safety, especially now with Covid-19 and global instability.

SEED’s target audience is the nearly 400 000 unemployed Cape Flats youth – with little chance of finding employment in the formal sector. Many of the youth we work with have awareness of this situation and feel gloom and hopelessness, without knowing what to do.

Our Seeding Futures programme addresses climate change and the youth unemployment crises by equipping youth to build their own resilience and connecting them to work opportunities in the local green economy.

Seeding Futures is a piloted and proved Accredited skills program that grows resilience skills in youth while connecting them to livelihood opportunities in the local green economy.

It is well-known that our poorer communities will bear the brunt of the climate crisis. We have already seen the impacts locally, as in the water crisis of 2018. Predictions are for ongoing water shortages, increased temperatures, fires and more, in an increasingly unstable climate that will impact our food systems. The latest IPCC report, Feb 2022, states that parts of the world are becoming unliveable and one could argue that the Cape Flats already is.

Despite the fact that all these elements are documented in the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and the 2030 agenda, the government seems to lack long term vision.

At SEED we are busy transforming and restoring communities from within.

We believe that capacitated and committed individuals can change the world.

The Seeding Futures program blends personal development support with technical permaculture training and low-cost resilience techniques. It equips individuals with hard and soft skills that promote greater levels of self-knowledge and behaviour change. This results in higher levels of personal resilience and wellbeing.

Importantly, the greater sense of self-knowledge and soft skills, together with the hard skills and experience acquired, create a foundation that makes students generally more employable, entrepreneurial and economically resilient. This includes promoting various non-income generating livelihood strategies.

This program transforms the lives of unemployed youth, giving them hope and direction, equipping them with the skills and the will to create positive lives for themselves. They also learn about communication, collaboration and conflict resolution. This growth in esteem means that graduates know their gifts and look for work that suits them.

The program equips and inspires youth to set themselves up (homes and neighbourhoods) for climate resilience - everything from food, medicine, energy, cooling, water, waste and fuel. Graduating youth have the skills to design resilient systems in a range of contexts.

The program connects student to real life work experience and connects them to employment and enterprise opportunities. Importantly, it also boosts the local green economy with 16 000 free human hours per year through the job shadows and provides businesses with capacitated and committed candidates to draw from.