Garden to Plate

CA took COVID by storm in 2020 by designing a new project at Rainbow Ridge aptly coined “Garden to Plate”.

While COVID related restrictions curtailed community education beyond our gates,  Greg Knibbs and our Green Team focused on improving the design, quality and volume of food grown in the gardens to create an improved diverse, organic and healthy diet on the plates of our staff and kids.

As usual, communication and connectivity (internet) issues at Rainbow Ridge presented challenges for the project but the team persevered and significant progress was made.

The project was given a huge boost when CA engaged the services of our Kenyan team from Kisumu City Permaculture Academy who collaborated with Greg (remotely) to deliver an intense training and practical design course at Rainbow Ridge followed by assessment. 

Among the many sustainable design applications, the team learned the importance of replicating edible forest ecology where food is enough for all so no-one goes hungry. 

Coupled with the “Garden to Plate” objective of growing and eating good quality food, there was much to celebrate as our overseers confirmed that our team has built a solid foundation at Rainbow Ridge to now share with the local community through a “Garden to Plate” Outreach Program.

Some summary conclusions to be proud of included:

• Rainbow Ridge demonstrates low-cost, common sense, culturally appropriate solutions for food and water security.

• Rainbow Ridge provides an effective training & demonstration site to teach sustainable solutions locally.

• The Green Team has the experience to demonstrate fast and economic ways to grow the best & most suitable foods for both home consumption, sale and/or trade surplus.

• The Green Team’s experience is now at a level sufficient to extend the “Garden Plate” Project to the wider community through a carefully designed outreach program.

The intense onsite work has proved to be the perfect recipe for teaching and preaching sustainable theory and practice from Rainbow Ridge to the local community through our new “Garden to Plate” Outreach Program starting this year.

Central to this project will be the continued transition of CA Kids to local families who will remain under the close continued care and supervision of our outreach team through in kind support and education so these families can replicate the type of healthy and sustainable living environment that exists at Rainbow Ridge.

In addition, we have partnered with a local Primary Boarding School to transform a desolate, desert site into another Rainbow Ridge while this community assists with the education/care of the remaining CA kids we continue to transition to local families over time. We are excited to train, educate and ultimately transform the horizons of another local community - school students, teachers, parents and local interested community.

Adding further dimension to our sustainable outreach work will be the introduction of yoga, English, sewing and healthy cooking classes and training for the local community.