NCC collaborates with a Kensington community

NCC has been implementing educational activities with refugee children in Kensington in collaboration with some members of the Interim. This has been a bit difficult owing to the very delicate social situation of the camp. 

There are two groups inside the tent that are experiencing conflict with each other - they have different ideas about how they should live.  The western part of the camp is very religious and they don't want to send their children to school. The eastern part is not religious and they send their children to school. The east side has been much more welcoming to us than the west, and that has made it a bit difficult for us because we want to help the whole camp and we don't want people on any side to not be able to be helped by us because of their politics or leaders. This is a problem that we are still thinking about how we can solve. 

The other project that we are doing in the camp is a vegetable garden that we started there. Mzamani from NCC has a lot of experience with community gardens and took it upon himself to start the garden here. The refugees were very clear with the idea of ​​planting plants that they had in their country of origin because it is much more difficult to find them in South Africa. They want things like spinach and sweet potatoes. 

The garden was started very recently but some plants are already starting to grow.