Land is our Security

My name is Karleen van Zyl. I am a young single mother from a small town called Loeriesfontein, 400km from Cape Town. It is a rural town in the Northern Cape province of South Africa and has high unemployment and poverty. We have one opportunity –access to land.

With a friend I share this small piece of land. Land provides us with the opportunity to provide food for our children and meet their basic needs. By growing organic vegetables we are able to provide for our family and the less fortunate members of our community. Our aim is to use our land to grow vegetables and in this way make our community more aware of health and well-being. We also need to educate our people around GMO’s so that they make informed decisions and choices.

We had a long struggle to access even this small piece of land. A land claim on this piece of land puts our livelihood under threat. We however continue to work the land to provide for our families and community. It is hard work to push wheelbarrows and to work in the hot sun. Our love for the soil gives us courage to move on. We have learned hard lessons over time and therefore hold on to this opportunity to make a living. We have learned and we know that we can use and mange our land just like men. Over the years we were made to believe otherwise.

Land is our security.