The Peace Diaries Radio Program was broadcast during the World Summit for Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg, South Africa from August 26 through September 4, 2002. It was broadcast to Africa, Middle East and Europe.


Click on the radio
9 MG download


3


SCRIPT, SHOW 3


00:01 – 01:01 (SHOW OPEN, MUSIC, KIDS QUOTES & KAREN QUOTE)

00:50 – 01:01 (Quote, Karen Kaun, KIT Executive Director)
We are part of one big ecosystem. Everything that we do has an impact on somebody else... whether we see it or not.

01:02 – 01:34 (Narrated introduction, Tessa van Staden)
At the beginning of this millennium more than one billion people, or a sixth of the worlds total population, lacked access to safe drinking water. While most residences of South Africa's Western Cape province have access to water, seasonal and sporadic rainfall often result in drought stricken summers. Different government departments have pulled resources to educate teachers and children on how conserve water as John Dierhardt, service provider with the South African Dept of Water Affairs and Forestry, explains

01:35 - 01:56 (Narr, TvS)
That is our dream, that each school in country will eventually, in 4, 5, 6 years’ time have a school environmental management plan and water policy, and that would include aspects whereby the school itself doesn’t do it’s own planning, on it’s own, firstly it’s always going into the community.

01:57 - 02:08 (Narr, TvS)
Dierhardt says the South African Government’s Department of Water Affairs and Forestry, and the Departments of Education call their joint educational effort the 20/20 Vision for Water Program…

02:09 – 02:30 (John Dierhardt, SA Dept Water Affairs & Forestry))
So, on the one hand 20/20 refers to – as you know – perfect vision, but perfect vision is also only after the fact… on this side of perfect vision one almost never makes people aware of how important the small things are, like drinking water properly, not over-using your scarce water resources, as’t were.

02:31 – 02:39 (Dierhardt continued)
Now, there are three central functions: heightened awareness, life skills and values, and sustainable views for everyone.

02:40 – 02:45 (Narr, TvS)
Dierhardt ads that visiting schools during rainy, winter months often made his task more difficult.

02:46 – 03:16 (John Dierhardt continued)
Summer is so dry, we sometimes have water restrictions. So, the irony is when we went out last year with this stuff to the schools it was storming. I told the people, look, please excuse me, but you’ve got to realize, do something with water falling from the sky now... it's free it's clean, it can be re-used. So, do something about it because by September, October, November spring sets in then December, January it’s summer and then we have water restrictions again.

03:17 – 03:23 (Narr, TvS)
Tires, cut in half, make an innovative water or ‘aqua’-trap, according to Dierhardt.

03:24 - 04:15 (John Dierhardt continued)
We cut the outer, rubber part; we cut it in half, like it forms two… uh... halves and we put both in a black plastic bag and bury it under ground, about a meter to a meter-and-a-half deep. This then serves as a trap, especially in sandy soil. If you water your lawn, for example, the water will go straight down, so you kill two birds with one stone; you get rid of all your excess tires because they can't be burned, and they can not get rid of all of them... and secondly of all you have a way to keeping nutrients in the soil and in the water longer. I have actually planted two aqua traps in my garden and my grass doesn't want to stop growing in that particular part.


04:16 – 04:41 (Narr, TvS)
In the year 2000, more than two-and-a-half billion people lacked access to sanitation services. So severe was the problem in Zimbabwe, at one stage, that a large percentage of the county's adult population was blinded by Dracoma, a disease born by flies. The invention of the Ventilated Interior Privy - or the VIP Toilet- changed that, as Food Gardens Foundation volunteer, Betty Hanratty, recalls…

04:41 - 05:08 (Betty Handerty, Food Gardens Foundation volunteer)
Over the years one of the things we had there was a VIP Toilet. Now, among the Shona in particularly, each family must have at least two toilets – one for the women, and one for the men. Traveling to- and from work it was amazing to see how, over the years, more and more of these toilets became built… so, it transformed people’s lives.

05:09 – 05:13 (Narr, TvS)
Although it was called ‘VIP’, there was nothing posh about the toilet’s design…

05:14 - 05:51 (Betty Handerty continued)
All it is, is a very deep pit lined, and a pipe from the pit, which is on the warmer side of the building, forcing the warm air to rise and then the top of that pipe has a mesh over it... so any flies that do get in - the toilets must be kept dark for this specific design - we used to call them curly weeds, when the flies leave the toilet, to go to the light, at the top of this vent, they get trapped there and die.

05:51 - 05:55 (Narr, TvS)
Governments need to invest locally says Andersen

05:58 – 06:16 (Per Andersen, agricultural economist with Food Policy Research Inst)
Governments need to invest more in rural infrastructure - in roads in rural areas, in making the markets work and that means, among other things, establishing standards that are generally agreed upon, measures.

06:17 - 06:38 (Andersen continued)
So, infrastructure markets, productivity, (and) increasing means seems to me are the three key things that governments have to invest in and deal with. But, also, for this to work primary health care and primary education are of critical importance to the rural poor.

06:39 – 07:05 (Narr, TvS)
In the developing world national governments are often unable to invest much-needed capital. But this does not mean that communities have to settle for dire straits. Mzamayethu is the name of a recently-established settlement in Hout Bay. The name means "through collective struggle we achieve". Kenny, a local leader and facilitator, says residents took matters (including fund-raising) into their own hands…

07:06 – 07:31 (Kenny) council leader Mandela Park, Cape Town)
So when we came here, many problems face us. One of the major problems was unemployment; unemployment was very much too high. So, how to deal with unemployment? The church leaders, together with community leaders, sat together to find ways to addressing poverty... so skill training was the option in peoples’ minds.

07:32 – 08:02 (Kenny continued)
Let’s arm our people with skills, so that they can have an opportunity of having jobs to fight poverty. So, automatically, we approached many companies... like Safmarine, BP, BPC Cement and all those big companies and also individuals. They became positive to support our community.

08:03 - 08:28 (Kenny continued)
So we now have a skill training center where we are arming our people with skills, like sewing skills, cookery courses, pottery making and all those things, in order for our people to have some kind of income at the end of the day, so that they can feed and educate their children at the end of the day.

08:32 – 08:43 (Narr, TvS)
Ecological phenomenologist, Tamra Raven, has worked with the International Council of Women for years, and says that sustainable development is directly linked to the educating women…

08:44 – 09:12 (Tamra Raven)
We know that the education of women is so important because of its correlation with population. Educating women having them have more money, they have smaller families.We must educate girls. We can't just pay lip service to it. We have to say we want to educate girls because it makes a difference to our survival. That means we have to implement the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women. It bears directly on my grandchildren's survival.

09:13 – 10:20 (SHOW OUTRO, MUSIC, SPONSORSHIP, PEACE DIARIES WEBSITE)


01:00 – 01:41 (Narrated introduction, Tessa van Staden)
With drought threatening large parts of Southern Africa, starvation and malnutrition are terrible realities that families, communities and governments have to address. The battle to feed the hungry is as old as history itself, but it's not all bad news. The United Nations' Development Program reports that malnutrition rates have been reduced almost a third since the 1960s.The local food garden is one example how communities have successfully provided families with food, skills and even an added income. Pat Featherstone, Western Cape Director of the Food Gardens Foundation in South Africa, explains how it works…

01:42 - 02:06 (Pat Featherstone, Food Gardens Foundation, SA)
The foundation teaches people to grow organic vegetables on a small scale. Maximum production and minimum space; using everything you've got. We encourage people not to buy. They use waste for the shade knitting, they use waste for protecting the plants, for putting in the soil, for feeding the soil.

02:07 - 02:23 (Featherstone continued)
And, of course in South Africa, which is an arid country, water is limited so we teach people to use very little water. Our method is actually is a water-wise way of gardening. So it’s small scale, organic vegetable production, aimed primarily at household food security.

02:24 - 02:34 (Narr, TvS)
Per Andersen, an agricultural economist with the Food Policy Research Institute, says the impact of these small gardens far exceed their physical size…

02:35 - 02:54 (Per Andersen, agric. economist with FPRI)
I think they (food gardens) can have a tremendous impact in terms of kind of serving as safety nets. Obviously a lot of the food that is being produced in Africa today is being produced from these small lots.

02:55 – 03:28 (Andersen continued)
But, of equal importance is the fact that whenever the markets result in lower prices, or whenever there are some other disruptions in the economy, these small plots can be extremely useful in providing some buffer to low-income households. I think there is a lot more that can be done...to make them more productive and less risky still… as well.

03:29 – 03:44 (Andersen continued)
So, I think one of the things we need to do is to make available improved seed varieties and improved production systems for those small plots, for the family plots, and the community gardens.

03:44 – 03:52 (Narr, TvS)
Ecological phenomenologist, Tamra Raven, says these miniature farms are successful because they are irrigated and tended locally…

03:53 – 04:28 (Tamra Raven, Ecological Scientist, ICW, OTS)
Local food security is important because it cuts down on transportation costs, it puts the ownership of economic plants and seeds, and the control of water rights at the local level, where people are, where there’s a closer relationship between, you know, local government – the local people who run a small community – and the people.

04:29 – 04:50 (Narr, TvS)
The food gardens are sometimes also called ‘door farms’, because the plot the size of four door-sized beds, about 20 squared meters, can keep a family in supply of fresh vegetables for at least a year. Western Cape program coordinator of the Food Gardens Foundation, Pat Featherstone, describes why this way of farming is cost-effective…

04:50 - 05:05 (Featherstone)
Our methodology is basically based at improving the soil. We do it by digging a hole in the ground and filling the hole with organic materials, which is going to decompose, so you’re putting the soil back and then planting on top of a compost heap, as’t were…

05:06 – 05:24 (Featherstone continued)
But then, of course, that works differently in sand and it works differently in clay. It works differently in a dry climate and a wet climate. So, you make modifications based on your soil type and climate. But basically, that is our methodology – digging a hole, filling it with rubbish & covering it over.

05:25 – 05:33 (Narr, TvS)
Ecological phenomenologist, Tamra Raven, agrees that small-scale farmers can only be helped if local vegetation is managed properly…

05:34 – 06:06 (Raven)
What we can do is manage local vegetation. We can get plant- or vegetation cover of the native plant species back on the ground. We need to encourage bi-regional seed trading of the local plants. We need to protect vegetation. We ought to have zero tolerance for losing any more plants. We predict that 34,000 species lost... in the short run.

06:07 - 06:14 (Narr, TvS)
Raven ads that responsible farming and responsible harvesting begins with ecological restoration…

06:15 – 07:12 (Raven continued)
When we do ecological restoration the first thing is we need to get a cover on the soil. Any plant on the soil is better than no plant on the soil, because rain is a highly erosive force. So we need to get a cover on the soil, and then the next season you might find that there is another kind of plant coming up...and that means more than one species, and that's good. Maybe the next season you get another plant and now you've got three different species covering the soil... maybe one of them attracts another species... like a butterfly or a moth or a little mammal... maybe you favor that kind of plant and have a little protein source.

07:13 - 07:22 (Narr, TvS)
Betty Hanratty, a volunteer with the Food Gardens Foundation for decades, recalls how the humble potato changed the life of an entire community, outside Cape Town…

07:23 – 07:42 (Betty Hanratty)
After some time we got a very flourishing garden going & one day I was sitting with the women on the damp soil, talking to them about their garden and what it had done for them, and they said to me, you know, a funny thing… The war has stopped in this community because of the food gardening. It’s brought peace.

08:06 – 08:23 (Betty Hanratty continued)
I taught them to grow potatoes in a bag, and they wouldn't believe me and we really battled to get this going. One day I went and said, "C'mon girls, the potatoes are ready... they ripped the bag open and out spilled these huge potatoes ... they all grabbed the potatoes and rushed home to cook eat them there…"

08:24 – 08:30 (Narrated Outro, TvS)
That was Betty Hanratty, a volunteer with South Africa’s Food Gardens Foundation.

08:30 – 09:13 (SHOW CLOSE, FUNDING, DEDICATION & PEACE DIARIES WEBSITE MENTION)


Copyright (c) 2002 Knowledge iTrust, Inc. All Rights Reserved. All trademarks, trade names, service marks, and logos referenced herin belong to their respective owners.