Blog Posts
OWA Global Summit 2023
The Open Wing Alliance (OWA) hosted its first in-person Global Summit since the covid-19 pandemic! This year the OWA Global Summit was hosted in Prague, Czech Republic; the summit saw 124 passionate activists from 44 countries and 52 organizations come together for the first time in four years under the theme; ‘Reconnect as a Global Force for Chickens’. Initiated by The Humane League, OWA brings 90+ member organizations together to create a unified front in our goal to end the abuse of...
Growing Hope: FLEAT Zambia Empowers Mukunkiki School with community garden project
Esther Kakole, a member of SAFCEI’s Faith Leader Environmental Advocacy Training (FLEAT) Zambia group representing the Christian faith recently shared one of the activities she has been active in. Esther writes: “Our school is Mukunkiki primary school situated on the banks of Mukunkiki stream in Luampa, Zambia. In this area, locals are into farming maize, groundnuts, and mostly cassava. The area does not have a marketplace, most people depend on small gardens for fresh vegetables, and...
Bvumbwe Parish’s Holy Childhood Programme: Nurturing Faith and Nature through Tree Planting
Father Damian Abraham, a Catholic priest at Bvumbwe Parish in Blantyre, Malawi, and a dedicated member of SAFCEI's Faith Leader Environmental Advocacy Training (FLEAT) Malawi group, passionately highlighted the remarkable initiatives undertaken by his parish. “The Priests of Bvumbwe Catholic Parish in the Archdiocese of Blantyre, Malawi lead children into planting trees, through their Holy Childhood Programme. Bvumbwe Parish is training children to plant trees and take care of their...
Indigenous Foods in Malawi
There is an old adage that says “let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food”. On Wednesday 7 June 2023, faith leaders from our Faith Leader Environmental Advocacy Training (FLEAT) Malawi II group, demonstrated this by selecting indigenous foods in Malawi that have a combination of nutrition and health aspects. Some of them grow in the wild and are slowly being domesticated as well. The four indigenous foods that the faith leaders highlighted from the regional perspectives are (i)...
SAFCEI hosts FLEAT Malawi II in Lilongwe
SAFCEI was back in Malawi from 6 to 8 June meeting with the second cohort of faith leaders at the Faith Leader Environmental Advocacy Training (FLEAT) Malawi II in Lilongwe. The group of twenty-nine faith leaders representing the Muslim, Baha’i and Christian denominations were selected from the over one hundred and fifty excellent applications we received for the FLEAT training. SAFCEI’s Executive Director, Francesca de Gasparis, welcomed the group online from the SAFCEI office in Cape Town....
Energizing solutions in Uganda
Our FLEAT member in Uganda, Saidah Nakaliisa, representing the Muslim community recently shared an update on the one-year Environmental Training project they concluded after receiving a SAFCEI small grant in 2022. The one-year Environmental Training project was implemented by Energizing Solutions working with Kasambya Community Zirobwe Luwero Muslim District under Uganda Muslim Supreme Council. This community project was about the establishment of a Nursery bed and fruit tree orchard where...
FLEAT Tanzania meets for a second time
We held our second Faith Leader Environmental Advocacy Training (FLEAT) Tanzania workshop with a group of 19 participants at the Rungwe Hotel in Dar es Salaam from 25 to 27 April 2023. The group of 10 women and 9 men from various Christian denominations and Islamic faith came together to share the activities they planned during the first introduction meeting in October 2022. The three days were focused on learning...
The Power of a Functional Food Garden: The Case of Mgombane Primary School
From the outside, the unassuming school does not resemble the green well-manicured gardens that are usually associated with educational institutions. The trees that populate the grounds are different from the usual decorative trees associated with most schools. There are indigenous chickens that are running around the school grounds and in between the classrooms there is a total ground cover from the dry grass that mulch the vegetable gardens. Trenches connect the rooftop runoff to the healthy...
FLEAT Zimbabwe II (Bulawayo)
SAFCEI hosted the first Faith Leader Environmental Advocacy Training (FLEAT) workshop for 2023 in Zimbabwe, Bulawayo, from 21 to 23 March 2023. The FLEAT Zimbabwe II group is the second group trained, following the first group in 2018, who has subsequently registered themselves as FLEAT Zimbabwe. The group of sixteen women and fourteen men who represented the Muslim, Quaker, and various Christian denominations with diverse backgrounds came together as people of faith to share their...
Eskom power cuts impact on factory farmed animals
Recently a story broke out about a North West poultry farmer, Herman du Preez who reported the death of approximately 50 000 broiler chickens, who died of suffocation due to the effects of load shedding (lack of electricity-dependent ventilation, lighting & temperature control). The Frangipani Boerdery farmer, du Preez says that the death of the chickens is due to lack of consistent electricity.Load shedding continues to affect businesses all over the country, and the effects are being...
