HABESHA Gardens in Atlanta is in the neighborhood known as Mechanicsville, one of high crime and unemployment. It also doesn’t have a grocery store in the neighborhood. So some residents started Helping Africa By Establishing Schools at Home and Abroad (HABESHA) as a way to empower the youth and the poor in the area.
“It’s a reawakening going on. It’s almost like it’s a renaissance,” says Cashawn Myers, director of HABESHA Inc.
Myers says it empowers people when they grow their own food and while saving them money. The program teaches young people how to grow food, compost, vermiculture and about alternative energy and water conservation. It gives them skills which they may be able to use in the future.
The program is patterned after Will Allen’s Growing Power in Milwaukee, Wi. Allen has inspired urban farms in New York City and Detroit, Mi. Allen says, “Urban farming is a multicultural, multigenerational movement, a revolution.”
View a CNN video on HABESHA…
Top photo credit: CNN Video Capture
Bottom photo credit: Cody McCloy/CNN
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