Community urban gardens, bearers of value and values. Eight community gardens of the city of Rome, 407 gardeners, 425 non-gardeners and 161 students were the first to be involved in a major scientific study on the impact of community gardens, which is being conducted in Italy, France and Austria.
Community gardens are not only spaces for cultivation and green care, but above all places for meeting, socialising and inclusion. The community garden is a way to get together, collaborate and experiment with forms of shared management of urban space. Participation in the activities promoted by the garden opens up opportunities for initiative, informal learning and the enhancement of each person's skills. In these contexts, a spontaneous sociality emerges, made up of exchanges of knowledge, everyday gestures and small acts of mutual attention. Community gardens become places where people of different ages, cultures and backgrounds meet and dialogue, finding a common language in the earth. Sharing spaces and responsibilities cultivates forms of cooperation that strengthen the social fabric of neighbourhoods, transforming the garden into a microcosm of coexistence and mutuality.
Scientific research on the impact of urban community gardens is carried out by Roma Tre University in collaboration with Replay Network aps as part of the Gardeniser Community project.
Gardeniser Community is a European Erasmus+ Adult Education project that aims to promote community gardens as spaces for learning and active citizenship and to provide gardens with innovative tools to understand and enhance the impact they have on their local areas. Gardeniser Community involves the network of urban community gardens in Rome, Vienna (in collaboration with Gartenpolylog) and Pau (in collaboration with Pistes-Solidaires).
