Local Community gains from Fairfield Women's Fund

At Fairfield, we believe in the story of a successful farmer, who was appointed as Farmer of the Year for many consecutive years. It later appeared that he gave all his neighbors of his very best seed to plant for the next season, and they did so every year. On being questioned about this behavior, especially in a competition driven society like our own, he replied that if his neighbors did not have good wheat, the bad seed would blow over to his fields and bring down the quality of his good harvests!

With this in mind, we decided to use a percentage of the annual profit of Fairfield Mountain Cottages, to create the Women of Fairfield Fund. This fund is aimed at the women who both live and work on the farm, who can then decide how to best use the fund to the benefit of their little community. The only requirement is that all projects done from this fund will be a joint venture – if for example they decide to paint their houses, the fund will provide the material and the families will provide the labour.

The fund is managed by the owner, Lizanne Malherbe, and she meets with the women working on the farm every second week (except during the harvest season). During these short get-togethers at the orchards before the day starts, they pray together and discuss projects like the annual gardening competition.

The first project initiated by the women was that of rain boots for the primary school children. A need existed in that smaller children had to walk quite a distance in the rain to their primary schools. The fund bought rain boots in the sizes needed, and distributed these in the correct sizes to the children of local farm workers. These are now the property of the Fairfield Women’s Fund and will be taken in after every winter, and redistributed the following winter (in a bigger size for every kid).

This is our first contribution to make going to school a little less muddy, and education a little bit easier.

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