Young gardeners seek their African roots in Ghana

By D. Aileen Dodd

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

In a struggling neighborhood of cracked concrete, low-rent homes and delayed dreams, students plant a lush garden to feed their neighbors and feel a connection to their African roots.

The rocky soil they rake, seed and water to bring forth crops teaches them survival lessons from the past they can carry into the future. The HABESHA organic garden grows as an oasis in an urban community in the shadow of Turner Field.

“We as African-American people need to know how to tend to our needs,” said Brianna Oates, 18, of Stone Mountain. “If the stock market crashed, we should be able to sustain ourselves ... on fruit and vegetables grown in our own backyards. That is how our ancestors survived.”

Oates, a Clarkston High graduate, is one of four metro Atlanta students who left Georgia on Tuesday to share lessons learned from the HABESHA garden with teens in Africa.

The students — among eight traveling with the nonprofit organization Helping Africa by Establishing Schools at Home & Abroad — will participate in a science fair at the Youth Institute of Science and Technology in Ghana, where they will discuss their green experiences. HABESHA’s garden helpers use solar power to run garden tools. Rainwater is collected in barrels to quench the thirst of dry crops.

Students in HABESHA’s other Black to Our Roots programs in New York, Washington and the Virgin Islands will join the metro Atlantans on the cultural exchange, which will take them on a three-week tour of Ghana’s landmarks and villages.

“In order for a people to move forward, they have to recognize their past,” said Cashawn Myers, executive director of HABESHA, a pan-African heritage group. “Everything we do helps to prepare the students to reconnect with their ancestral homeland.”

The group produced the award-winning documentary “Black to Our Roots” detailing its efforts and the spiritual journey of students who travel with them to Africa. Working the garden outside the Dunbar Neighborhood Center is mandatory for students in the program. The students develop a communal spirit planting strawberries, okra, collards, tomatoes, beets and carrots from seeds and knowing that the fruits of their labor will be shared with neighbors for free.

The agricultural project is part of the group’s year-long study of Africa, its history and culture, from ancient civilizations to slavery and the present.

“We as African people have always been connected to the Earth,” Myers said.

Some students who join the program also commit to traveling to Africa. They raise money through family donations and by working booths at fund-raisers such as Organic Fest, a neighborhood festival with vendors held in June that encourages people to think and grow green.

Oates said her trip was paid for by her grandmother, who retired recently in New York. Her cousin Tayvon Snowden, 12, raised $2,000 to cover his expenses by sending e-mails to family and friends, working for neighbors and selling smoothies.

“He has been on such a high; he has been counting down the days until his trip to Africa for the last six weeks,” said his mother, “Queen” Taese Snowden of Stone Mountain. “I’m proud he was able to do it and am very thankful to the community for all of their support.”

The teens will walk the dark, cavernous slave dungeons, meet with tribal leaders, spend time at an orphanage they “adopted” and tour the W.E.B. DuBois Memorial Centre. While they prepared for their journey, teens staying behind affiliated with HABESHA’s other programs tended to the organic garden in tribal spirit.

“It teaches us to grow food and keeps us out of trouble,” said D’Anthony Fowler, 16.