As part of Mandela Day, the GCX team revisited a community garden in Ocean View, Cape Town to support the garden with the next planting season’s compost and seed.

GCX first visited Ocean View on Mandela Day in 2013 to help Shamiela Abrahams, a passionate community worker, extend her vegetable garden. Shamiela grows and shares the produce from her garden with the largely unemployed community living in the council flats.

Shamiela was born on a farm in Noordhoek and started growing food from a very young. The garden she started continues to provide hope and healing to the community since she left there in 1969.

We salute Shamiela for her resilience, faith, passion and heart she puts into growing the garden despite many challenges. While the face of the garden has changed over the years, the soil continues to produce nutritious food since we first visited it in 2013.