Perhaps the most compelling example of the transformational impact of INMED’s Health in Action programme, and the epitome of what INMED strives to accomplish with this programme, is from one of the student participants. Khunedi Mashishi was a fifth-grader at Paradise Bend Primary School in Diepsloot, Gauteng when our team at INMED South Africa first met her. An avid runner, Khunedi has big dreams of competing in the Olympics one day. Read more…
Success Stories
A Path Out of Poverty - Khunedi Mashishi
Gardens of Hope in the Free State
Rainbow High School and Repholositswe Secondary School serve students in two impoverished rural communities in Free State, South Africa. Both areas are plagued by violence, and students have few opportunities for extracurricular activities. INMED’s Adaptive Agriculture Programme worked with the schools to create gardens to provide both nutritious food for school meals as well as an outlet to give youth something productive to do after school. Read more…
Overcoming the Burden of Hunger
In a poor rural community of South Africa’s Free State province, Pietrus Moshoeshoe found himself responsible for 66 extended family members (47 of them children) after his father passed away. He also inherited leadership of his family farming cooperative group. Although Pietrus was learning from his father, he did not possess the same technical knowledge or training in agriculture. The group was struggling desperately, sometimes going up to three days without eating. Read more…
A Brighter Future for Disabled Producers
Rosie Mateko worked as a teacher in South Africa for 14 years before suffering a severe stroke that left her disabled and forced her to resign from her educational career. It was difficult for Rosie to come to terms with what had happened to her, and she felt a deep sense of loss in addition to the pressure of having to support her four children and two granddaughters as a single, disabled mother. Read more…
Strengthening Livelihoods in Limpopo
The Thabelo Christian Association for the Disabled (a struggling farming cooperative located in a remote mountain village in Venda, Limpopo) works to feed and support an extended household of approximately 40 family members. Each of the cooperative members has physical disabilities, such as missing, deformed or wasted limbs—some as a result of polio. Read more…
Nutrition And Revenue For Disadvantaged Schools
Educational institutions in disadvantaged communities are increasingly turning to aquaponics to provide more nutritious meals for students, serve as an educational resource and generate income for school operations. Carel De Wet Technical High School in Vanderbijlpark, for example, was the first recipient of an INMED commercial aquaponic system in South Africa. Sponsored by Air Products, this system has produced fresh food and income for the school since 2012. Read more…
Nurturing a Crop of Young Entrepreneurs
Each year, the 7th grade students in Port Elizabeth are required to start an entrepreneurship initiative as part of their school curriculum. This year, INMED South Africa encouraged Seyisi Primary School to use its Health in Action garden as its entrepreneurship project. Read more…
Break Time Buddy
A recent survey indicates that 4 out of 10 children in Johannesburg are obese. One way INMED South Africa is fighting this obesity epidemic is through a new Health in Action initiative called “Break Time Buddies.” Break Time Buddies are unemployed youth who have graduated secondary school and are recruited by INMED via local school governing boards. Read more…
Female Farmers Win Top Agriculture Prize
Life in Pella, Northern Cape is hard. With high unemployment and few options for employment, combined with a prolonged drought, there’s not much hope to go around—unless you know the Pella Food Garden Cooperative. This all-female farming cooperative is the beneficiary of an aquaponics system, adaptive agriculture modifications and business training by INMED South Africa. Only two years ago, the co-op’s members had to rely on government assistance to survive, because they could not produce enough crops to feed their families, let alone earn a sustainable livelihood. Read more…
INMED Aquaponics Helps Children with Special Needs
Aquaponics is gaining significant interest as a means for subsistence farmers to adapt to climate change. INMED, however, is taking that a step further to provide food security, better nutrition, skills development and even income generation for schools in low-resource communities. Read more…
INMED Improves the Livelihoods of People with Disabilities in South Africa
INMED has partnered with USAID Southern Africa to expand its Adaptive Agriculture Program (AAP) for people with disabilities in the Free State province. The project is integrating people with disabilities into the mainstream economy through new, adaptive agricultural technologies and assisting DPSA in accessing funding for their organisation. Read more…
INMED Aquaponics Gives Disabled Farmers in Henneman a Sense of Purpose
“People with disabilities are often seen as useless and worse, bad luck,” said Makoena Moeketsi, vice-chair of the Tshwaranang Disabled People Centre in the dry and dusty township of Phomolong near Henneman in South Africa’s Free State province. “But this new INMED aquaponics system has given us a sense of purpose and we take pride in the fact that we’re now helping to feed our community.” Read more…