New Blogger Address for Project HOPE in South Africa

Stefan Lawson is currently serving as both Project HOPE's Country Director for South Africa and Interim Country Director for Mozambique. You can follow his his experiences in both countries at the new blogger address Project HOPE in Africa.

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Food Gardening Update

It's been a while since I last wrote about our pilot food gardening project in Munsieville. To be honest, at the beginning I was a little bit apprehensive because I wasn’t sure if people would remain enthusiastic or if they would quickly loose interest after we handed it over to the community.


All my fears have been laid to rest! I am so proud of our group of women and men who took on this challenge. It's not just a gardening challenge, but it is also a direct challenge against the hand-out mentality that is rife in the community. These guys are a light to the rest of the community. When people grasp the right vision, it can create such a powerful movement that very quickly it begins to indirectly impact people outside the program looking in and seeing what’s going on.

We have created 23 gardens, plus the keyhole garden and all are doing really well. We planted potatoes, butternut, maize, carrots, beetroot, runner beans, tomatoes, water-melons and pumpkins. The rains have now arrived and with our terracing technique we have managed to prevent the top-soil from being washed away.

If everything goes to plan in a few months time people will harvest a bumper crop that will benefit them nutritionally and any excess will be sold off providing an extra bit of income as well. In the mean time Project HOPE will keep monitoring the progress making sure that no pests attack the crops and will continue to provide help when needed.

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The first couple weeks...Setting up office in South Africa

I have lived in Africa for a few years, so coming here I didn’t anticipate too many problems immersing myself into South African life. But I have been living in London for 2 years and Portugal before that so I have been away for a while, and I guess you forget certain things that are not applicable to the country that you are living in at the time.

You’ve heard of the saying, “what came first? The chicken or the egg?” The past couple of weeks have been trying to figure out what needs to be done first – I need a phone, but I can't get one until I have a bank account which I can not get until I have updated the registration documents for Project HOPE. I can't do that until I have a place to live and so it goes on!

I arrived and wanted immediately to start sprinting, getting it all done. By the end of the second night, I realised I was back in Africa, not London and things dont happen that fast. An old mentor of mine years ago when I first arrived gave me a piece of wisdom that has proven so true here, “life here is not a 100m sprint, but an ultra-marathon.” In other words things move slowly here, and we need to adapt to that too. I’m adjusting back to that mentality.

The other thing that I had forgotten about was to do with culture and shame. When someone is struggling with something, they wont admit it and ask for help, but carry on as if nothing is wrong. To ask for help is to admit failure and that is viewed as shameful. This plays itself out in meeting with my staff. I will be explaining something and then ask if they have any questions. The answer most of the time is no. I ask if they understand and they say yes. Yet I have realised very quickly that they did not get what I was saying (this is not because they are dumb, but rather a combination of English as a second/third language for them, plus me talking too fast, plus assuming that what is said in English translates exactly into their own languages!). So now instead of assuming that they understand I ask them questions to make sure. There is a great book called “African Friends and Money Matters” written by David Maranz on cultural differences between westerners and Africans. I read it along time ago, I must re-read it again soon!

Enough for now. I’ll write more later! Stefan

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