What are the main initiatives of the Perivoli Foundation?

The Perivoli Foundation operates two primary initiatives. The Perivoli Schools Programme focuses on early childhood education by training nursery teachers, providing them with essential skills to deliver education to young children, as well as showing those teachers the causes and impact of global warming, and the case for natural farming, which they then share in their communities. The Perivoli Rangeland Restoration Project works to restore degraded land in Namibia and ultimately beyond through its biochar carbon removal project, a platform for large-scale commercial farmers and smallholders on community-owned land, to create jobs and earn carbon offset credits for converting encroacher bush into biochar. As part of the programme, field workers also participate in livelihood upliftment modules delivered by Perivoli trainers, of which some topics will include financial literacy, good parenting practices, global warming, and natural farming.

The hope is that these transformative messages will be adopted and transferred to fieldworkers’ hometowns, broadening the Foundation’s reach. Both the natural farming initiative with the nursery school teachers and the biochar carbon removal project led to a recovery in soil health and, ultimately, the production of more food and more nutritious food. Meanwhile, greenhouse gases are captured and stored as a result of soil regeneration and through the sinking of carbon in the encroacher bushes whose carbon content would otherwise ultimately be lost to the atmosphere.  We are creating a potential blueprint for Africa’s sustainable future where education meets ecology.