South Africa

The ministry of education and the King and Queen of the royal family of the Netherlands engaged our team and other stakeholders, in a workshop which discussed the just energy transition to green energy and it challenges in South Africa.

Nicolaas Faure van Schalkwyk, Manager of the Solar Training Centre, highlighted the importance of how practical up to date industry experience, needs to form part of the training curriculum and experience. "Education institutions are too slow and not dynamic enough to adapt their qualifications to the fast-changing environment in the renewable energy sector. Training providers in collaboration with international industry experience from SUNFarming and technology service providers like Brainstud, can reach more people and assist with making people more employable with micro courses, skills programmes and part qualifications. South Africa has elevated levels of unemployment, but there is also a need for experienced solar PV installers. Something which we in partnership with Johan Schaap from
Brainstud try to achieve"

SABC News, video report on the project: Food Security, over 40 schools benefit from the SUNfarming Vitality Booster Project

Labour is needed for production in the food industry. Accredited Agri-SETA trainers in organic vegetable production, provided by SUNfarming South Africa, take over the training of these workers. In this way, additional new jobs are created locally. Our trainees are much better equipped to find work in agriculture after completing our trainings.
300 unemployed people are trained in the training programme. For the top 60, the project offers further training on the farm property provided by SUNfarming in Potchefstroom. As licensed SUNfarming franchisers, a large number of them will help to supply supermarkets with organic vegetables and herbs.

As an emergency aid, Vitality Porridge is distributed to school children as a daily vitamin- and nutrient-rich supplement to their school lunch during the project period. In addition, the children receive a 5 kg bag to take home to their families. As there are often not enough plates in the schools, Vitality Porridge can also be distributed and drunk more diluted as a milkshake. The children love it all the more this way, because it tastes like a vanilla shake, they say.
The course participants can also take home a 5kg bag of Vitality Porridge. The school programmes supported by KfW/DEG aim to tackle malnutrition, one of the biggest development problems in African countries, at its root. Children are empowered directly at school and teachers are trained to pass on the knowledge they have gained about the essential importance of healthy food to the children. Through training and education directly in the production facilities and in cooperation with the church communities, jobs and sustainable future prospects are also created for the people in Africa.

"We would like to expressly thank all project partners without whose support we would not have been able to realise the emergency food aid and training programmes in the Vitality Porridge Project," Peter Schrum continues.

SUNfarming Vitality Porridge Project in South Africa is a PPP project and is funded by KfW/DEG. The project is supported in its organisation by develoPPP, Skills for All, german cooperation, F.E.E.D. (Food-Energy-Education-Development e.V.).

You can find all information at www.feed-ev.de or contact our Edith Brasche, Vice-President FEED e.V..

In the second year after the foundation of the non-profit organisation FEED in Hamburg as well as its sister NGO FEED South Africa NPC in South Africa, the organisation has expanded and developed its sustainable projects: The fight against malnutrition of children in schools and kindergartens is still very much in the foreground. To this end, the SUNfarming Food & Energy facility in Potchefstroom in the North-West Province of South Africa trains children in the cultivation of fruit, vegetables and also medicinal herbs, which in turn are mixed into a Vitality Porridge to offer the children a balanced diet rich in vitamins and minerals that supports healthy development and provides energy for active participation in school lessons.

In 2022 alone, FEED has been able to provide balanced nutrition to 15,327 children at 38 schools and nurseries and 83,000 family members within a 200km radius of Potchefstroom through funds raised by private donors and integrated into the DEG project led by SUNfarming. .

After two years, the school headmasters confirm a significantly increased presence of the children in class as well as more active cooperation of the children and thus better school results. Together with the partners, FEED has thus been able to create the basis for many children to receive a good basic education at school and a strong foundation for their further educational and hopefully professional path.
Furthermore, within the framework of new training measures in sustainable agriculture for socially weak people and inhabitants of the townships around Potchefstroom, 30 women in particular were newly trained and accompanied by FEED. These women live in remote regions, mostly without a job or other income, with their families and often several children. The gardening training introduces them to the cultivation of food for their own consumption, with the aim of gradually training them to become farmers who can earn money together as cooperatives by selling their products.

FEED President Peter Schrum and Vice President Edith Brasche visited FEED projects in the Potchefstroom region in November and met other new partners to expand sustainable development aid in the Potchefstroom region and beyond.For more information, visit FEED.

„Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Let us all come back together in 2022 and keep on changing people´s lives.“ wishes Melanie Jooste, Team Leader SUNfarming South Africa.
The whole SUNfarming team agrees with this wish.

"To date, we have trained 685 potential new gardeners in the SF Community Entrepreneur training programme. We have created new school gardens on a total area of about 4000 m². From our first trainings at BA Saobi Secondary School in Ikageng, spinach is already being harvested and used in the school kitchen," enthuses Melanie Jooste, Team Leader SUNfarming South Africa.
In addition, during the project period 2021/2022, 28.8 million servings of high-quality, healthy Vitality Porridge developed by SUNfarming will be delivered to more than 40 schools over a period of 18 months through the SF Vitality Porridge food aid programme. It will be distributed to 10,000 school children and 50,000 relatives.
The SUNfarming DeveloPPP project is supported in its organisation by the June & Andrew Mlangeni Foundation, the non-profit association F.E.E.D. (Food-Energy-Education-Development e.V.) Hamburg and the F.E.E.D. NGO South Africa. (The German non-profit association FEED and its sister organisation in South Africa are additionally collecting donations from international donors, companies and foundations in order to further expand the urgently needed and sustainable development aid in South Africa in addition to the DEG project.

More information on the project can be found here: