Month: April 2011

At the Cape Town branch of funky Italian pizzeria Col’Cacchio pizzeria yesterday, Celebrity Chefs Justin Bonello,  Bertus Basson and Neil Jewell fired up the pizza ovens for the launch of the restaurants Celebrity Chef Series.  KZN-based NGO, the Wildlands Conservation Trust was selected by the restaurant chain as the beneficiary of the Series. The extremely popular Col’Cacchio pizzeria Celebrity Chef Series will run from May until the end of August 2011.

Col’Cacchio pizzeria has put together a line-up of four of South Africa’s top chefs for this third annual gourmet charity challenge with one pizza masterpiece to be added to the menu on a monthly basis.  With every celebrity pizza sold, R5 will be donated to the Sustainable Communities Programme run by the Wildlands Conservation Trust.

The Sustainable Communities Programme creates opportunities for individuals with entrepreneurial spirit in underprivileged communities and, in turn, develops green, vibrant and sustainable communities.  These ‘tree-preneurs’ are shown how to plant and grow indigenous trees from seed and care for them until they reach a certain height.  The trees are then traded back to Wildlands for items such as food, clothes, bicycles, building materials and school and university fees.  Wildlands then plants the trees back into these communities or in forest restoration projects.  To date the programme has developed 3500 tree-preneurs across 23 communities.

Project Manager for the Wildlands Western Cape Sustainable Communities projects, Lesley Joemat joined in the festivities with three of her tree-preneurs form Eerste Rivier outside Stellenbosch.  Nelin Laban (15) and Clinton Visagie (12), together with their mom Katriena Visagie have grown 300 trees so far.  “This has been really good for the boys,” Lesley said after the event, “when they arrived they were very shy and intimidated by the whole experience but by the end of the day they were laughing and really enjoying the pizza’s. They couldn’t stop talking about it when they got home.  I’m sure they’ll be the centre of attention at school today!”

“These kinds of experiences are so important for the ‘tree-preneurs’ said national Programme Manager, Charmaine Veldman, “it might be an everyday experience for you or me but for these boys it’s something they might never have imagined doing and it makes them feel special.”

Col’cacchio pizzeria Director, Kinga Baranowska, commented: “We really hope to raise an impressive amount of money to go towards creating greener, sustainable communities and developing more successful tree-preneurs like Nelin and Clinton.”

The Chefs and their Pizzas

Bertus Basson kicks of the Series in May and is the famed chef from Eat Out Top 10 Restaurant, Overture in Stellenbosch.  His creative and fresh cooking seems to be out to disprove the Overture motto, “perfection is often strived for but never achieved”.  His May creation is called  Jou ma se spicy pizza  and sees the famed Col’cacchio pizzeria thin base topped with Cape Malay chicken strips, red chilli, feta, a green yoghurt drizzle and crushed poppadoms.

Justin Bonello, the bush cook extraordinaire and self-described “average Joe with a passion for life, love, food and my friends” takes the helm in June with his vegetarian gourmet pizza, The greengenie.  It is served on a wholewheat base and contains grated Grana Padano parmesan, roasted garlic, beetroot and butternut, sautéed shitake mushrooms, Danish Feta, rocket and a mixture of pine nuts, pumpkin, sunflower and sesame seeds. Topped with avocado and a drizzle of balsamic glaze.

Marthinus Ferreira’s creative dishes saw DW Eleven-13 earn the fifth spot on Eat Out’s celebrated list of the Top 10 Restaurants of 2010.  His seafood creation for July is Prawn Starr: prawns coated in chilli, garlic and fresh lemon with roasted cherry tomatoes and fresh basil leaves.  Topped with rocket and sour cream.

Neil Jewell is renowned as the (self taught) master of charcuterie at the award-winning Bread & Wine in Franschhoek.  He has created a wintry culinary delight for August called Sticky Fingers: a lentil base topped with roasted pork belly, smoked mozzarella and tomato marmalade.  Finished off with lime and vanilla pickled cucumber and a chilli candy.

At the end of the Series, Col’Cacchio pizzeria will have a look at which of the masterpieces proved most popular and contemplate adding them to their regular menu.

Visit any of the 17 (soon to be 18) Col’Cacchio pizzeria stores across South Africa from May to August 2011 to eat pizza for charity and taste what each Celebrity Chef is bringing to the table. [For all our KZN  Supporters make sure you visit the Gateway Col’Cacchio Pizzeria and try all the Celebrity Chef Pizza’s]

Picture Caption: Celebrity Chef Justin Bonello with Project Manager for the Wildlands Western Cape Sustainable Communities projects, Lesley Joemat and ‘tree-preneurs’ Nelin Laban (left) and Clinton Visagie (right) at the launch of the Col’Cacchio pizzeria Celebrity Chef Series in Cape Town yesterday.

For a review of the launch by Cape Town blogger Matt Allison on his blog ‘I’m no Jamie Oliver’ Click here

Since mid 2009, bicycles have been transported by removal company Stuttaford Van Lines, to Wildlands Conservation Trust projects all over the country, where learners are earning the bikes by growing indigenous trees.

Indigenous Trees for Life falls within the conservation NGO’s Sustainable Communities programme, affording disadvantaged people the opportunity to propagate and care for indigenous trees and trade them back to Wildlands for goods such as groceries, school uniforms, household goods, and bicycles.

The bright yellow bicycles are supplied by Wildlands in partnership with the NGO Qhubeka, an organisation dedicated to supplying bicycles into rural communities where people walk to and from school or work, up to ten kilometres each way per day.

Procurement Manager for Wildlands, Debbie Farley said: “Stuttaford Van Lines have been extremely helpful with the transporting of our yellow bikes from the Cape Town depot to Empangeni. The logistics of having some space on a lorry and then collecting the bikes and packing them so well in blankets is amazing and the bikes arrive in Empangeni still safely swaddled.”

Thousands of “tree-preneurs” have been able to trade their tree credit for bicycles; 150 trees need to be grown to a certain height to earn a bicycle. The walk to school for some can take an hour and a half each way, and now takes these learners 20 minutes on their bicycles.

Julie Munro, National Manager of Corporate Development at Stuttaford Van Lines, said: “We get many requests for sponsorships but few compare with the Wildlands Conservation Trust, with their vision of restoring and conserving our environment through their innovative tree-preneurs programme! We are happy to be able to assist wherever possible with the transport of bikes from Cape Town. A Stuttaford Van Lines staff member was privileged to visit one of the projects and was touched by the passion and excitement of all involved.”

“We hope that we can play an important supporting role in taking Wildlands forward to continue their work of sustaining our environment for future generations.” Said Munro.

At the Midmar Depot in Howick, waste is sorted and in the case of cardboard,  made into bales by this compacting machine.

120 tons of waste per month is collected by The Wildlands Conservation Trust in the Midlands.  Wildlands has established recycling depots at 52 schools and 100 businesses since March 2010, and the programme has 600 “waste-preneurs” collecting recyclables in exchange for goods such as groceries, building material, bikes and education support.

Wildlands supplies schools and businesses with separate bins for the collection of each type of waste. This sorted waste is collected by Wildlands vehicles and is taken to the Howick depot where it is sorted further, as some waste such as plastic has different categories it needs to be packaged in for buyers.

 How it works

Purchasers of the various types of waste have been sourced, and glass is purchased by Consol. Cans are separated into metal and aluminium, and are crushed by a machine to make bales. Wayne’s Scrap Metal purchases the metal and Hulamin takes the aluminium. Cardboard is also baled, with bales weighing up to 350kgs. When 30 000 tons has accumulated, a super link truck transports it to a mill and it is pulped to make items such as tissue boxes.

White and coloured paper is baled in the same way and pulped at a mill, and products such as toilet paper are made. Newspaper bales are purchased by Thermal Guard which is used for thermal insulation. Polystyrene and plastics are sorted and baled as well, with Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastics used for products such as pool decking, buckets, garden furniture and dog houses.

All the waste is weighed so that it can be allocated to the school or business, as 40% of the rand value of the waste collected goes back to the schools, and businesses donate their funds to a nominated school or to Wildlands to help run the programme.

Learners from Deccan Road Primary sort waste into categories at their Wildlands Recycling Village on the school grounds.

 A growing success

From the schools alone 236 tons of waste was collected in 2010 and a further 60 tons already this year. Urvashi Haridass, Wildlands Recycling Operations Manager, said: “The advantage of running the programme in schools is that children are learning about recycling and its importance for the environment, and we have found that these young people are teaching their parents how necessary it is.”

Business has also embraced the project, with 302 tons of waste being collected at the business sites in 2010 and already a further 120 tons in 2011. The waste is not only generated by the business itself, but staff is encouraged to bring their recyclables from home. Wildlands also collects from some residential estates, government offices and charities. 548 tons of waste has been collected from the waste-preneurs, earning R274 000 for the people identified as needing the opportunity to earn from waste collection.

Wildlands Recycling is supported by Lottery funding secured by the African Conservation Trust with Wildlands as an implementing partner, as well as Unilever South Africa.

Pictures taken by: Maryann Rivers-Moore/Wildlands Conservation Trust

Dr Zweli Mkhize, Premier KwaZulu-Natal with from the left Mr Ralph Pecku, Unilever Director for PMB Factories, Dr Andrew Venter, CEO, Wildlands Conservation Trust and Urvashi Haridass, Relationship Manager, Wildlands Recycling at the launch of the KZN Premiers “Sukuma Sakhe” flagship program which encourages citizens to try to change their own lives, rather than only relying on Government to deliver.

“Sukuma Sakhe” is the KZN Premiers flagship program. Stand up and build being the rallying call, with a focus on encouraging all sectors of society to change their own lives, rather than only relying on Government to deliver. This builds on the Premier’s commitment to build partnerships between Government, Business and Civil Society

Launched on Friday 8th April in iMbali, Sukuma Sakhe aims to realise these partnerships. Since November, the Wildlands Conservation Trust has been working closely with the Premier’s team to align its Wildlands Initiatives with this very exciting initiative. “Our Wildlands Initiatives aim to support the transformation of South Africa communities, nurturing green entrepreneurship, cleaning, greening and saturating our partner communities with water tanks, bicycles and solar power heaters, and restoring the ecosystems that underwrite their livelihood, their rivers, wetlands, forests and grasslands.” says Dr Andrew Venter, Wildlands CEO.

At the heart of these Wildlands Initiatives are thousands of green-preneurs – tree-preneurs, waste-preneurs and food-preneurs – growing trees and food and collecting recycling, and then bartering the trees, food and recycling to improve their lives. They barter these goods for food, clothes, building material, water tanks, bicycles and any form of educational support. Premier Mkhize has been inspired by these green-preneurs, with over 600 working in his Willowfontein community alone. Addressing the thousands of community members gathered for the launch, he urged them to become “Green-preneurs”, “Find Dr Venter, and find out how you can become Green-preneurs. You can collect the dirt lying around the community and turn it into money. His team will help you.”

The Premier is an outspoken fan of the Green-preneur movement as he has seen how it has transformed his community. Willowfontein is now clean, because the “Gogo’s are fighting for the dirt”. More than this, the Premier has been inspired by the change in the attitude of the Willowfontein community members who are “standing up” and “building” their own lives. As such he has formally launched a KZN Greening Initiative, which will support the planting of 500 000 fruit trees, 500 000 Indigenous Trees and the collection of over 75 000 tons of recycling, across KwaZulu-Natal, over the next 5 years. In the process, 800 new permanent jobs will be created and 25 000 community members will receive livelihood support and skills training. The KZN greening Program is being implemented in partnership with the Wildlands Conservation Trust, who have secured additional support from the African Conservation Trust, National Lotteries Distribution Trust Fund, Bonitas Medical Fund, Unilever SA and Time Freight.

The development and roll out of Sukuma Sakhe is being driven by Ms Busi Kuzwayo, who has recently returned to South Africa after a 2 year stint as Consul General to India. Buzi is very excited about this initiative and the Green-preneur approach. “I love the model. It is very clever as it enables individuals to change their lives, whilst improving communities”.