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MYLES AND MICHELE BUXTON’S DREAM OF EXTENDING IMIFINO’S VISION TO THE UMHLANGA COMMUNITY TO NOURISH, EMPOWER, UPLIFT AND FEED IS STARTING TO TAKE ROOT, WRITES KATE HOARE
Feeding the
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ith its humble beginnings in the hills of Shongweni, Imifino, a modest, registered, non-profit organisation is the passionate calling of friends – Kaz and Matt Wilson and Andre Rutishauser. Since lockdown 2020, Imifino – with their Operation Community Nutrition programme – started cooking for those in need with a big focus on children. Together with the help of Skhindi Shandu, they prep and cook 500 meals a week and deliver highly nutritious, plant-based meals to impoverished communities in the rural Shongweni, Assagay areas. Vegetables and rice packed with natural superfoods and high in protein are cooked slowly over wood fires in giant, cast iron potjies, then decanted into five-litre containers for delivery. Onions, potatoes, butternut, lentils, sweet potatoes and imifino (wild, leafy greens, somewhat like
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spinach) make a delicious and nutritious smoky veg risotto packed with goodness. Imifino grows wild across South Africa and is a highly nutritious superfood. Once a traditional food, it’s now seen by impoverished communities as a “poor person’s food”. Central to NPO Imifino’s vision is re-educating on imifino’s high nutritional superfood value, making it an acceptable “cool” leafy green again amongst communities, one that is packed with nutrients, vitamins, minerals and anti-oxidants. Being hungry is unimaginable,
ABOVE: Skhindi Shandu, Kaz and Matt Wilson of Imifino Assagay, Ty, Michele and Myles Buxton of Imifino uMhlanga. ABOVE RIGHT: Skhindi takes care of the cooking. and with the Covid-19 lockdown, impoverished people have suffered so much more in terms of job losses and rising food prices. As horticulturists and nutritionists, Matt and Kaz understand the importance of good nutrition, but as they expressed, “delivering hundreds of weekly meals to nearby impoverished rural areas is not sustainable”. Their plan is to
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plant sustainable food gardens and fruit forests within rural community centres, where community “champions” are trained in gardening, rain-water harvesting, seed saving, growing, harvesting and nutritional recycling, empowering communities to become nutritionally knowledgeable and self-sufficient. Prestondale and uMhlanga have Blackburn Village – an informal settlement – on their doorstep, so the opportunity to extend NPO Imifino’s vision to our North Coast makes enormous sense. Prestondale’s
