Video Introduction to Ubuntu LEADER

Here you will find the introduction of the UBUNTU LEADER elements and concepts.


UBUNTU LEADER: Introduction from Ubuntu LEADER on Vimeo.

http://vimeo.com/20457120

Elements of the Home-Garden-Goat (HGG) Pilot project

Along the next  posts we are going to introduce to you the three main elements of the HGG pilot project belonged to the phase 4 (UBUNTU III) of this project.

1) The Deep Patch vegetable Garden,

2) The Milky  Goat  

3) The synergies created at Home that we will use to increase the productivity of our Garden and Milky Goat  (Compost, waste water, green waste, etc…).

UBUNTU LEADER....from 2009 until now.

Ubuntu LEADER is a mixed approach in which the RAG explores other systems financially efficient and sustainable.

The LEADER methodology, as a deep integrated approach, is  aimed to create self-supported system with minimum incomes. This methodology has been  adapted and integrated to the South African context as far as cultural, social, environmental and local policies are concerned.

The word UBUNTU, as we have seen before, means in Zulu and Nguni languages (with common root with African languages) “we are with the others”, creating and encouraging community and rebuilding in solidarity.

The UBUNTU – LEADER method is organized in 4 steps.

 1) LEADER  Conventional approach. Granting through the Rural Action Group (RAG)   

    (Implemented between 2009-2010)

2) UBUNTU I. RAG creating and supporting a “community rotating fund” managed through Loan, in order to complement the grants for people with difficulties to access to banking services.

(Started to be implemented in 2010 and 2011)

3) UBUNTU II.  Creating community through linking small enterprises. (Current beneficiary projects or small enterprises already working). Through “compost” used in a synergic way as well as other elements as complementary “alternative currencies”

(Considering to be implemented through a pilot experience in 2011)

4) UBUNTU III. Food security and itinerary to agro-ecological entrepreneurship. 

                                Home- Garden- Goat (HGG) 

Considering its implementation as a Pilot Experience along 2011, with 10 families in every RAG, System of managing inside homestead:

The proposed method involves managing a triangle of exchanges among Home, the milking Goat and the Deept patch vegetable garden as we will see described in the following lines:

1)  The garden provides fresh vegetables to the family all along the year, and leafs and other green garbage will be provided / fed to the goat.

2) The goat provides fresh milk to the family (or to ferment it as amasi) and waste to compost that will be used to fertilize the Garden

3) The homestead and family will provide to the garden the waste water all over the year, and if necessary a supplementary water during the dry season in order to guarantee  the provision of fresh vegetables all over the year, mainly maize, beet, pumpkin  during the summer, and cabbage and other leaves during the winter.

UBUNTU LEADER BLOG

This Blog has been created as a part of the communication tools within the Rural Development project based in Kwazulu-Natal in South Africa from 2007. Implemented by APRODEL (Professional Association of Local Development Advisers) and financed by the AECID (Spanish Agency for International development Cooperation).

This blog was born to continue with the collaboration between APRODEL and the rural municipalities of Kwazulu-Natal after already three years of working together focused on the local development and with the objective of empowering population and reducing poverty within the territory.

European LEADER Methodology and Participation-Action- Research, among others,  have been one of the pillars of this common work, and this blog will provide us with a virtual place to continue with this participatory and "sharing together" process.

Along the next months we will be posting aspect about this experience and the evaluation of these years, as well as the present activities which we have named as UBUNTU LEADER, as an expression which joins the deep feeling of a community along with a open and participatory methodology.

“I am cause we are, and we are because I am” is one of the aspects reflected  on the Ubuntu concept , and for us it is cristal clear that is impossible to find the way to social and local advance without joining all the members of the community to this objective. 


This is a place to participate. This is a place to share. This is a place to meet and keep on working together. A virtual cross-cultural bridge between South Africa and Spain.

Ngyabonga kakhulu!