Ozquest Garden Namibia

Location: Namibia
Project Start Date: november 2006 -
Completion Date: January 2007

Project Concept:

To establish a garden using permaculture principals in the desert in namibia

Detailed Project Description:

Ozquest and the Duke of Edinburgh Awards took 35 young Australian volunteers to Namibia to establish a garden using recycled water from a local tourist lodge.

Local products, as much as possible, were used without harm to the environment. The project was very successful but lacked funding to prolong the success. The local lodge, which normally trucks its vegetables in from South Africa (some 1000 kms) now buys a high percentage of its vegetables from the garden and pays the same prices as from the truck (this is an ongoing commitment from the lodge). The profit from the garden is expected to return approximately US$60,000 per annum.

The profit goes to an organisation, Children of the Wilderness, who are all orphan children.

The garden is based on permaculture principals and 100% organic.

Project Duration & Schedule:

The garden took some 3 mths to establish and will be ongoing. A family is employed and housed by the lodge.
The project needs a return visit from trained permaculture persons, to pass knowledge on to the current farmer. The farmer has little training but has still returned good results in the past 12 mths.

Ozquest has been back, but can't return any more due to lack of funds (all of the 35 volunteers paid their own air tickets and food).

Project Needs:

Ozquest has projects in Vietnam and Cambodia but has ceased projects in Namibia due to funds. Wilderness safaris has some 28 lodges in Namibia and Botswana. Some of the lodges are very remote, so food is flown in by plane. All of these lodges could have gardens working for the orphan kids and saving pollution for the world.

Other Info:

Many thanks to Geoff and Nadia Lawton for the education that enabled us to complete this project