A JACOBSTOWE man has recently returned from a life-changing experience promoting organic gardening in Swaziland.

Phillip Holland, 55, travelled to the Southern African country to teach young people in an area devastated by HIV/AIDS how to grown sustainable crops.

The three-week expedition was self-funded, with the exception of a small contribution from the United Nations, and saw Phillip working with an HIV/AIDS organisation known as Swaziland Youth United Against HIV/AIDS (SYUARS) on the community backyard garden project.

His role was to train outreach workers with SYUARS so they in turn can teach others to grow organic crops and help improve the lives of those affected by the spiralling HIV/AIDS problem in Africa.

Phillip said HIV/AIDS infection rates in Swaziland had increased steadily from 3.9% of the population in 1992 to an estimated 38.6% in the age group 0-25 years last year.

He said the trip had given him a better understanding of the ways in which HIV/AIDS affects communities in Africa. Due to the death of so many farmers and workers from HIV/AIDS, farm production had reduced, leaving less food for home consumption and for sale. The vicious cycle is exacerbated by the increasing expenditure on medicine as more members of a family contract the virus.

?Medicine is a big expenditure. These people are earning around £100 a month and the medicines are very expensive. It is a total poverty trap caused by illness,? he said.

The planting was carried out in the small community, with the bizarre name of ?Corporation?, which is just outside the capital city of Mbabane. The village had around 50 to 60 dwellings, often housing as many as ten people, with the extended family all living under one roof.

Phillip said he had found the project very rewarding: ?Emotionally and morally, I got a lot from it,? he said.

Phillip said whole communities had been ?totally devastated? by the disease. ?You have the horrific situation of 15-year-olds looking after all their brothers and sisters because their mother and father have died,? he said.

Phillip said the young men of the community had not been taught how to plant crops because many of their fathers had been too sick to show them how it was done.

?They just lack the expertise to do it. All I have done is take what I have learned over the years about organic growing and teach it to these people,? he said.

Phillip said he found it difficult to leave Swaziland on the last day of the visit. ?I will remember the sheer gratitude and appreciation on their faces,? he said.

?A lot of these young men have been left without a father-figure. We have no comprehension of it in this country,? he added.

The life expectancy in Swaziland is only about 40, so the young people were not very used to seeing a man with a white beard, Phillip said.

Twelve young men from the village had helped at various stages in the three-week project, two of these were HIV positive themselves.

The land in Swaziland was quite steep, so the plots had to be terraced using stones brought down from the mountain. ?There were many hands to help with the work. There was no waning in enthusiasm,? he said.

Phillip left a camera with the youth coalition and the project workers have promised to send pictures in the coming months so he can see how the trees are growing.

?They showed so much commitment. I have got a nice feeling they are going to look after it. This is their livelihood for the future,? he said.

The young outreach workers will now take the expertise they have learned to spread the project to help people in other areas of Swaziland to become organic in their back gardens or smallholdings.

?The biggest drawback was the weather. Some days it rained heavily but coming from Okehampton I had an in-built immunity to that.? joked Phillip.

The community backyard garden project was co-ordinated by ?Matambo? Ngobese of SYUARS following a chance encounter with Phillip, while Matambo was visiting Devon.

The idea behind the project is to encourage the cultivation of and consumption of vegetables, pulses and starch foods as a sustainable way of combatting nutrient deficiencies among the community.

Phillip has always had a keen interest in agriculture but has increasingly come to specialise in the promotion of organic gardening and growing methods. He has worked on a number of organic gardening projects in Devon and Cornwall. He travelled to Swaziland as a representative of the small environmental group Systems Of Life Organics.

Phillip said he would be keen to return to Swaziland or undertake a similar project in another parts of the world, but additional funding would be required as this sort of project was expensive.

If anyone would like more information on the on-going project or would like to make a contribution towards funds, they are asked to contact Phillip on 01837 851202 or at: [email protected]">[email protected]