Juvenile Tycoon Investments, an eight-member youth organisation, has helped set up more than 700 backyard gardens in Windhoek in four years.
Founder Salomo Katamba says the group’s aim is to empower young people and create employment for themselves while contributing to food security.
“I grew up at Ruacana near the Etunda irrigation scheme and I learned to appreciate the value of growing your own food. In addition, the prices of produce in the city are extremely high, so I realised backyard gardens can help cut food costs,” he says.
Katamba says while a few members of the group – six men and two women – are employed, the majority are students.
The group’s project manager, Ambambi Tomas, says apart from running a garden at the Namibia Fish Consumption Promotion Trust premises next to the Tobias Hainyeko consituency offices at Ombili, they host training sessions around Windhoek on various topics.
These include gardening and composting, animal husbandry basics, and poultry management.
“We also train people in introductory entrepreneurship and agribusiness, as well as financial literacy and the concept of value addition,” Tomas says, adding that they also help schools and early childhood development centres to set up and run their own gardens.
Katamba says Khomas regional councillor Christoph Likuwa facilitated the group’s use of the trust’s premises.
Likuwa says he was impressed with the group’s work as they trained other young people in many aspects of farming and would like to help them more.
“They are doing a good job training others and I am looking for a bigger piece of land where they can set up a bigger project,” he says.
Group member Ndakewaondjo Ester, who is also a vocational student in Windhoek, says: “We practise organic agriculture in this space and do not use chemicals to control pests.”
They grow mealies and a variety of vegetables including tomatoes, cabbages, spinach, kale, beans beetroot, as well as sugar cane.
Ester says she has learnt a lot about pests and crop diseases and how to control them organically.
Tomas says non-governmental organisation Green Planet Gardening has sponsored the group with garden starter packs and certificates for trainees, which include school teachers.
He says since its registration in 2022, Juvenile Tycoon has helped establish 713 gardens in Windhoek and trained 1 956 people on backyard gardening theory, 1 723 on gardening practicals, 948 in compost making, and 145 training on making compost from earthworms.
“We also trained a special group of about 150 agriculture and science teachers from around Windhoek how to make vermi-compost,” Tomas says.
He says Hope Initiatives Southern Africa provides the chickens for training on poultry management, vaccination and egg handling, and 92 people have benefited from this initiative.
The group’s biggest challenge is obtaining equipment for value addition, he says.
Tomas appeals to well-wishers to fund some of the group’s initiatives, like handing out free starter packs, as well as some of the produce.
He says they would welcome garden nets to protect their produce from the hot sun.
– email: matthew@namibian.com.na
