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Description
The aim of the project is to raise the environmental awareness of the inhabitants of the city of Lodz and to strengthen neighbourhood and inter-generational bonds. The project responds to the need to improve residents'' comfort of living, leisure, aesthetics, expand green areas in the urban space and reduce isolation caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. We want to revitalize the urban space and create a community garden as a green place for leisure and meetings. Young people participating in the project will design and carry out animation activities for 30 seniors acting as advisors. The citizens of Lodz will choose the revitalised area by means of a referendum and will engage in social consultations regarding the garden project. As part of the project, we will conduct community garden design workshops, upcycling workshops, ‘Art in the garden’ workshops and workshops for community leaders. We will develop and publish a publication entitled ‘Essentials of a community gardener’. We will hold a dissemination conference. The beneficiries of the project are young people (15-25 years old) who are passionate about social activity and ecology, seniors and inhabitants of Lodz, who will engage in social consultations. The project is implemented in partnership with the ‘Socially Engaged’ Association and the Norwegian organisation CREWS, which will design a community garden in a place selected by the inhabitants, taking into account their suggestions and land use conditions. The garden will be arranged in Scandinavian style.
Summary of project results
This project was aimed at raising the ecological awareness of local residents, as well as strengthening neighborly and intergenerational bonds. The idea of the project was to collectively revitalize urban space by creating a green place for relaxation, meetings and integration in the form of a community garden, with active participation and involvement of citizens.
The project was a response to:
- the desire of Łódź residents to increase the comfort of life, relaxation and sense of environmental aesthetics
- building environmental co-responsibility
- lack of green areas in urban space and lack of functionality of already developed areas
- eliminating social isolation resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic
- the need to build an intergenerational bridge in the form of active activities in a city meeting place
We carried out the following activities:
1. Project promotion
2. Referendum "A place for our community garden"
3. Study visit to Norway
4. "Green Line" - consultations with the inhabitants of Łódź
5. Recruitment of workshop participants
6. Workshops "GARDEN FROM A TO Z"
7. "UPCYCLING IN THE GARDEN" workshops
Products:
• 45 hours of workshops on designing community gardens
• 45 hours of upcycling workshops
• "Social Gardener''s Essentials" (publication)
Due to the fact that our project was ended prematurely, the main result, which is a community garden, was not achieved.
We have created the "Social Gardener''s Essentials" (publication) that can be used by representatives of various age groups interested in healthy and sustainable gardening.
Thanks to the design workshops, young people acquired knowledge and skills in the field of designing community gardens and in the field of upcycling solutions that can be successfully used in the garden.
Summary of bilateral results
Together with our Partner we completed the following tasks:- study visit to Norway (April 2022)During the visit, our foundation had a unique opportunity to see how community gardens are built in northern Europe. Of those visitedplaces, we drew a lot of inspiration and examples of good practices, which we shared with the local community and the Library management"Słówka", where our garden was created. During the meeting at the headquarters of the CREWS organization, we also talked about the shape of the projectgarden, social consultations that were used in this project and we raised the issue of the content of the publication entitled "IndispensableSocial Gardener. We also discussed management issues.- substantive consultations (May/June 2022): together with our partner from Norway, CREWS, we worked intensively on the garden designsocial project, which is being built in Bałuty, Łódź - the "Słówka" Library (place selected as part of activity 2 called Referendum "A place for our"social garden"). The contribution of the participants of the "Green Line" campaign, who delighted with their inspirations, was a great help.- garden design (July 2022). The final version of the garden design, based on residents'' suggestions and our recommendations, was created in...July 2022.- creation of the publication "Social Gardener''s Essentials" in English (June 2022), which was then translatedinto Polish for further dissemination.