Project n.2024-1-IT02-KA220-ADU-000248498 co-funded by the Erasmus+ Adult Education Programme, Key Action 2 - Cooperation Partnerships
Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or of the National Agency Erasmus+ INDIRE. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.
The Gardeniser Community project promotes paths and tools for reading the community impact indices of urban community gardens (UCGs) in their territory.
The cross-sectoral and highly motivated partnership intends to build a participatory pathway by adults active in UCGs that goes from the local to the international, and then returns with the results to the local dimension, in order to identify the areas and relative impact indices of an UCG. A process that will start from the areas of action that have emerged from previous European projects: environmental, socio-educational, well-being, aesthetic, economic as well as an open dimension to accommodate the inter-actions between the other 5 areas.
This work is necessary if an UCG is to be readable as a local learning space that promotes social inclusion, civic engagement and participation, offering lifelong learning opportunities to everyone living in the community. The self-reading of the impact indices by the members of the garden, as well as its possible reading by external entities(local community, public administrations, companies, etc.), enhances the positive externalities the UCG produces and justifies its existence, laying the foundations for promoting its activities and receiving support from other stakeholders.
CONTEXT
Gardeniser Community originates in synergies that have alternated the international and local dimensions, nurturing formative and transformative paths in the field of community urban gardens over the last 12 years. European cooperation projects within programmes such as LLP and Erasmus+ VET and ADU have created the opportunity to work on an UCG model valid transversally in the various countries involved (ES, FR, IT, DE, UK, EL, AT) and the emergence and delineation of a common function in the various countries, the gardeniser (garden+organiser). The resonance and potential of this work has also led to a cooperation with Latin America (EuropeAid programme).
The UCG is delineated as a learning environment, a space of participation managed by citizens, in which they can exercise and develop civic and social skills, a catalyst of energies aimed at fostering understanding of environmental and climate issues, strengthening the individual citizen's commitment to adopting sustainable practices, and promoting them to other citizens. By identifying the areas of action of UCGs that involved the gardeniser intervention and the skills needed to take on a facilitating role internally (towards gardeners and visitors) and externally (towards the local area and neighbourhood institutions), it made it possible to work on recognising the role of the UCG and codifying common references throughout Europe, bringing into play the full potential of non-formal education and training in the Gardeniser Pro, Gardeniser Plus and Gardeniser Hub projects.
The Gardeniser, the name chosen at an international level so that all those who play this role could recognise themselves in it and with others, is also the common denominator of a project strategy aimed at bringing innovation to the field of community urban gardens, which today are to all intents and purposes the bearers of a new vision of the city, that of sustainable cities.
The Gardeniser Community project brings to the urban community garden movement, which has now taken on worldwide dimensions, not only the possibility of governing its own actions and internal dimensions at a local level in order to maximise its impact on the community, but also to strengthen its accountability with institutions and with other economic actors interested in exercising their corporate social responsibility.
OBJECTIVES
- Support the bring out of the learnings acquired by adults active in urban community gardens, viewed as active citizenship and resilience hubs
- Promote urban community gardens as proximity learning centres thanks to digital tools for the qualitative-quantitative reading of their benefits for the community
- Increase the quality of life-long learning, governance and fundraising practices by involving the territory, institutions and enterprises in the recognition of the urban community garden as a space for exercising sustain-abilities
PROJECT STRUCTURE
The project intends to develop the following main actions:
COMMUNITY IMPACT OF AN URBAN GARDEN
Local pathways involving adults active in community urban gardens that will be supported to bring out the skills and knowledge that can be acquired (self-awareness) in an urban garden and, based on these, identify areas of community impact of the garden and possible indicators.
Think tank in France, Austria e Italy: meetings between partners at European level where to capitalise and synthesise on what emerges from the local pathways, sharing knowledge, experiences and indicators collected, in order to define in detail the community impact indices of urban gardens.
Comparative analysis of community impacts on 3 pilot gardens, through a participatory evaluation, adopting a quasi-experimental design.
Incremental experimentation on 3/5 gardens in each country, aimed at reading the positive social externalities generated by the garden on the local community.
ONLINE INTERFACE - COMMUNITY IMPACT INDEX TRACKER
Definition of the system of guiding questions aimed at supporting community urban gardens in reading (qualitative-quantitative) benefits of their reality and practice over time.
Production of the translations of the guiding questions for the analysis of the community garden project, in order to make the evaluation tools accessible to a wider audience.
Creation of the online Community Impacts Tracker, a user-friendly online interface with an automatic system of weights linked to community impact indices, which will allow gardeners and gardenisers to internally and externally examine the dimensions of the actions pursued by the community project of their garden, making this operation repeatable and updatable over time. The self-assessment of community impacts carried out by gardeners and gardenisers will be reported in an electronic certificate that will visually communicate the qualitative and quantitative indices of the community impact of an CUG at a given time.
DISSEMINATION AND EXPLOITATION
Elaboration and implementation of a complex and specific dissemination and exploitation strategy aimed at fostering the construction of a community of practice, both through information and awareness-raising activities of ‘newly engaged’ multipliers, and by capacitating gardenisers ‘innovators’ in the application and use of the systems and tools developed by the project.
Social media and webpage presenting the project: aimed at a wide audience
Local events dedicated to stakeholders at key moments of the project: addressed to urban gardeners and volunteers
Training sessions, face to face or online: addressed to gardenisers
Ad hoc campaigns and public events at the end of the project: addressed in particular to potential supporting bodies
By promoting the effective use of what has been achieved through the Gardeniser Community project by adults active in urban community gardens, the aim is to activate local governance processes, aimed at the change necessary for the implementation of an ecosystem based on horizontal subsidiarity.
INTERNATIONAL PARTNERSHIP
The consortium of partners counts on
Replay Network aps, a social promotion association based in Rome (Italy), which has been involved in European projects focusing on community urban gardens for several years and supports Rome's urban community gardens network ORTI IN COMUNE.
Pistes-Solidaires, association in Pau (France), that initiated the first Gardeniser action project and followed all its structuring over time
Gartenpolylog, association of community gardens active in the city of Vienna (Austria).
Roma Tre University, Department of Economics
PROJECT TIME SPAN
36 months, starting December 2nd, 2024 and going until December 1st, 2027
