Oliver's Village

Oliver's House is proud to announce that with the help of our generous donors we purchased 11 acres of land adjacent to the Zenzele informal settlement. This is the proposed site of the Oliver's House Village which will incorporate:      

• Aids/HIV  Clinic
• Organic Farm and Food Forest
• Children's Day care facility
• Community Hall
• Skills Development village
• Education Centre
• Computer Centre – incorporating an e-library
• Children's Homes
• Amphitheatre and learning centre

Oliver’s Village is the largest and most costly project we manage. Due to the size of the project we have divided the project into 5 phases spanning a five year period. The estimated time frame of five years is based on current generated income.  However, should we receive substantial support from one or more corporate sponsors then the time frame would be considerably reduced.

Oliver’s Village will be guided by environmentally friendly or green principles and we have engaged the support of Midgard Conscious Choice to consult and manage a full biospheric programme for the site to ensure the viability of a complete community model that meets and surpasses all social, economic, environmental, architectural and agro-ecological international standards.

Planning a self-sustaining village

The village and organic farm is being designed as a fully integrated sustainable environment. This design meets the highest standards in earth friendly and efficiency terms. It will be self sufficient in terms of Energy, water and food security and in the medium to long term economic sustainability will be achieved. Oliver's Village will have its own photo-voltaic electricity generation substation on site independent of Eskom. All water heating will be done through solar-thermal systems. Bio-gas digestion will provide a safe and sustainable gas supply for cooking and heating requirements.

Oliver's Village has a borehole producing 20 litres of the highest quality water per second.  This is more than sufficient to provide for all of the agricultural, domestic and landscaping needs.  Supplementary rain and storm water harvesting systems and grey water treatment systems are also being constructed.

In order for Oliver's House to create an environment friendly self-sustaining village a carefully calculated balance between animals and plants is necessary as each feeds the other; the plants feed the animals directly, the animals excrete nutrient-rich manure for the soil, and the soil sustains the plants.

The plot will be divided into:

• 2 acres of grassland

• 2 acres of food forest

• 1 acre of food gardens

• 6 acres will be used for housing, aids clinic, classrooms and playground as well as for the amphitheatre.

In terms of food security, Oliver's Village will set a new standard for self sufficiency and variety.  The agro-ecological design draws on the principles of organic farming, permaculture, bio-dynamic farming and Japanese nature farming.

The farm will have 8 circle food gardens, 8 shaded food tunnels, a 2 acre food-forest, thorny edible berry hedges covering the outside perimeter walls with wall gardens on the inside. Small vegetable and herb gardens will be developed outside all the bedroom units.  It will also house demarcated composting boxes, a vermiculture and a solar-thermal effective micro-organism brewery. The farm will also host a variety of animal species, including cows, sheep, pigs, chicken, ducks and donkeys. In addition to this an aqua culture consisting of freshwater Kingklip and Tilapia will be established as well as Beehives, owls in owl-boxes and a wild variety of wild bird and reptile species.

The farm will ensure a year round food security programme that will surpass the nutritional needs of the resident orphans and staff, the children from the day care centre as well as supplying food parcels to the adjacent informal settlement.  It will furthermore provide Oliver's Village with an entrepreneurial opportunity for economic sustainability in the medium and long term with off-site food sales and the sale of probiotic solutions from the EM brewery. Another major contribution of this model will be the education opportunities it offers to others as an open university in sustainability with learnerships in community agriculture and food security on offer during the construction phase and as an ongoing part of the life of Oliver's Village.

We are confident that this project will add economic and social value to the community of the Zenzele informal settlement and provide long term sustainability to Oliver's Village and our Feeding Scheme Projects.