Introduction
Community gardens can be great places to come together for people of all backgrounds and ages with different social and gardening experiences. This module focuses on what it needs for all those people to feel well in the garden. We explore the concept of safer spaces and reflect on what we need to become one. We discuss organisational challenges and develop strategies for overcoming barriers in order to fully exploit the potential of such projects. When it comes to planning a garden or restructuring garden areas we present a few methods that are useful with groups of people who are not all fluent in one common language.
The learning goals of this module are:
- Understanding the concept of safe and inclusive spaces
- Acquiring knowledge how to make a community garden safer and more inclusive
- Developing ideas how to reach out to a greater diversity of people
- Understanding how ro reflect needs of different people in planning your garden
- Learning to identify barriers to participation and develop strategies to overcome them.
Lessons
L1. Creating safer and inclusive spaces
Creating safer and more inclusive spaces in community gardens is essential for fostering a welcoming environment where all participants feel valued and supported. This chapter explores the concept of “safer spaces,” emphasising that safety is subjective and varies for each individual. By implementing inclusive practices, such as multilingual signs and communal celebrations, gardens can mitigate discrimination and cultivate a sense of belonging. Additionally, we’ll discuss strategies for increasing diversity within garden groups, ensuring that everyone, especially marginalised communities, can contribute to and benefit from the garden experience.
“A safer space is a supportive, non-threatening environment where all participants can feel comfortable to express themselves and share experiences without fear of discrimination or reprisal. We use the word safer to acknowledge that safety is relative: not everyone feels safe under the same conditions. By acknowledging the experiences of each person in the room, we hope to create as safe an environment as possible.” LINK
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A safer space actively welcomes participants of all backgrounds. It makes sure that everyone is treated as an equal, valued member of the group. It brings respect to everyone.
It is a space to learn and share, to make mistakes and work together on improving the space. An inclusive space lets all participants be valued contributors and co-creators. The concept of safer spaces includes that everyone knows about the principles of the space. It also includes that there is a way to talk about situations when people did not feel safe and to find ways to deal with them. The aim is to create a positive atmosphere of caring and respect. “We all have a part to play in building a welcoming and inclusive society.” Gardens of Sanctuary
Making our community gardens safer and more inclusive spaces is good for everyone in the garden. It gives us the feeling of being welcomed, valued and wanted. People who have migrated or have fled to a new country often experience racism or other forms of discrimination in their daily lives. Making a safer space out of your garden means that they can have a break from being a refugee or migrant. It offers people the chance to be a member of the garden, regardless of their background.
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When people perceive a space as a safe space they are more likely to become part of the community and to bring in their opinions as well as skills and competences. People develop a sense of belonging and gain self consciousness. Thereby safer spaces contribute to peoples’ mental health.
TRY OUT YOURSELF
Once your group is running for a while, take some time at a garden meeting to explore what does it mean to feel safe.
To make your community garden safer and more inclusive starts with creating consciousness for the importance of such a space. To embed respective policies in your garden rules or code of conduct can be a good anchor point. How to actively welcome people with different backgrounds and make all participants feel equally welcomed is then a matter of practices and garden cultures. These can be small things like signs in different languages or offering tea at every session.
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There are for sure many ways to make your community garden a safer and more inclusive space. Below 3 suggestions, what can help to create consciousness and to put your intentions into practice.
Garden rules
Create your garden rules together in the steering group or the group of gardeners who are constantly there. Reflect on what is important to everyone in how you interact and how you would like to handle difficult situations while keeping people safe.
Some questions you can ask yourself in the group:
What are your aims in terms of equality and diversity?
What behaviour do you want to encourage? What kind of behaviour do you want to ban from your garden group?
How do you proceed if someone does not comply with the rules?
Make sure to include rules to ban harassment and discriminatory behaviour and also address how to deal with it.
Some examples and inspirations from other fields:
resourcecentre.org.uk/information/equality-and-diversity-policies-for-small-groups
mentalhealthcommission.ca/ … /safer space guidelines mar 2019 eng.pdf
Welcome people
- carry out dedicated induction sessions – sometimes splitting groups according to their needs or experiences can increase well-being. Women only sessions are a classical example
- install a buddy system: Make sure newly arrived participants know whom to address with questions or problems they face. A buddy can be even more: they can come to the garden together, for the first phase work there together and introduce the new person more deeply.
- translate important information and instructions to the languages spoken by your members/participants
- Celebrate together: Different people are celebrating different holidays. One way of acknowledging diversity is to create a calendar of holidays of all gardeners and to celebrate some of them together. These can be religious holidays as well as the human rights day or the black history month.
- be patient and remember we are all learning
Create learning opportunities
We can all learn from each other. Create opportunities where gardeners can share their experiences and expertise relevant for the garden. These can be different methods of cultivation, use of plants, cooking, guided tours during which gardeners share their stories of gardening,… More concrete activities can be found in module 3.
In some gardens the neighbourhood is very diverse and people from all backgrounds are interested in gardening and join the garden group simply because they see the opportunity in front of their doorstep. Other gardens are used by a more homogeneous group and want to include people from different backgrounds or they are planned as intercultural community gardens right from the beginning and develop a concept of how to address people with preferably different backgrounds.
Whatever your concept or starting situation is, reflect upon it, define your goals and think of appropriate steps to reach them.
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How to reach out to a greater diversity of people
Reflect your group or participants: Who is already part of the garden group, who is visiting and who is missing?
Set your goals: Who should become part of your group or use the garden for their activities? Do you want to invite just anyone who lives close by or do you want to involve specific groups. Are you looking for the greatest possible diversity like in intercultural garden Wilten link(learning.ugain.eu/portfolio/at10/) or do you want to open your space for whoever needs a green space to reroot?
Also set your boundaries: What can you as a group cope with? Is it ok if people with special needs of assistance come to the garden? Can you accommodate people who do not have a stable status of residence? Depending on the answers to these questions you will choose different activities to invite people. Here a few suggestions:
Put an invitation in different languages at the entrance. Shortly explain how people can participate.
Cooperate with organisations of different communities: Ask them whether you can present the garden at one of their meetings. Ask the group managers to signpost people to the garden who express an interest in green activities or in meeting people with different backgrounds.
In case you want to explicitly invite refugees you might also cooperate with refugees’ homes and introduce the garden on their pin boards or open sessions. Get in touch with volunteers working in the institutions and ask them whether they are ready to accompany residents to the garden or advertise the project among them. People often need someone they trust to enter a new space and a new group. Also associations working with refugees who offer bike kitchens, workshops for children or language classes might be important partners.
Create a multilingual social media presence and invite the different stakeholders described above to share your content.
Working with peers: In case members of different communities are already part of your garden group, ask them to promote the garden within their communities.
Offer other activities than gardening in the garden:
Many gardens have made the experience that gardening is not the first priority of people who have fled. Offering conversation classes has shown to be attractive to people who want to improve their language skills and get in touch with other people. A café of encounter was also very successful in different gardens. It was carried out every week on a fixed day and people were invited to join. It turned out that many came with open questions concerning their procedure as asylum seekers or to simply spend some time outside and have a chat in a nice atmosphere. Some of the regular attendees later became gardeners.
2 examples:
intercultural Garden Rosenduft: suedost-ev.de/ interkultureller garten/interkultureller garten.php
Café of encounter with Bunte Daumen Kufstein:
learning.ugain.eu/portfolio/at7-activity/
Find more examples in Module 3:
Children as ambassadors:
Children are often enthusiastic about gardening. Some gardens started working with children of different backgrounds and offered special activities for them. In some gardens this was the sole aim and they remained a mainly children’s garden. They adapted the garden to make it usable for children and to meet their needs and interests. In other gardens, working with children was a way to address parents and other grown up relatives that were invited to follow their children and join the garden. In many cases this strategy was quite successful.
Lesson Quiz
L2. The spatial dimension
In this lesson, we delve into the spatial dimension of community gardens, exploring how location, infrastructure, and plant diversity influence participation and inclusivity. The choice of garden location can attract or deter different community members, so it’s essential to consider accessibility and neighborhood dynamics. Additionally, we discuss the importance of creating welcoming infrastructure, such as multilingual signs and communal spaces, to foster connections among diverse participants. Finally, we highlight the value of embracing various planting techniques and cultural practices, making the garden a rich tapestry of shared experiences and resources.
Already the location of your garden has an influence on who is participating and who is not or what it needs to attract different people to the garden.
If your garden exists already
You are running a community garden and are thinking of including new people? So check where you are and what is going on around you. Is your garden close to an inhabited area or are you somewhere at the outskirts or in a rural area? How diverse is the neighbourhood you are situated in? Is there public transport to reach your garden?
If you are planning to start a new garden
If the area of your garden is not yet fixed you might first go back to your target group. Who are the people who should use the space and where do they live or work? Once you have defined one or more areas where the garden could make sense you can start scouting for spaces.
Depending on your target group these can be on the premises of refugee homes, green or brown spaces in diverse neighbourhoods, semi-private plots in social housing areas and alike.
As a next step you will have to contact the landowner.
Just as any community garden an intercultural garden needs gardening infrastructure like beds, paths, tool sheds, possibilities for irrigation and alike. Beyond that you might think of some specific infrastructure to make everyone feel welcome and meet their needs.
This reaches from multilingual signposting to different areas, places to meet or to be alone to hygiene facilities.
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Places to meet, to eat and to prepare food
Community gardens are spaces to meet new people and old friends. Make sure to have spaces to sit together like a chair and tables, a picnic area or whatever fits your community members. To be able to meet also on cooler or rainy days a roofed space is a great gain. This can be a covered pergola, a yurt, a tipi or an extended garden shed. Some people might have experience with mobile easy to construct facilities. Maybe they want to contribute.
Offering and sharing food is part of many (garden) cultures and is a means of creating and celebrating community. If possible provide facilities to prepare food and drinks, wash and store dishes. This might be a small outdoor kitchen, a Samowar to prepare and offer tea or something more sophisticated like a clay oven.
Inspiring example: Together with a group of young people the Intercultural Landscape Garden constructed a clay oven as part of a clay construction workshop. The people involved in construction were mainly young people who were not part of the garden group and some men. During the construction work, women originally from Kurdistan brought in their experience in using such an oven and explained what is needed to make bread. Once the oven was ready these women were the ones who knew how to use the oven and who used it most.
Multilingual Signs
help everyone in the garden to find where to do what and what not.
TRY OUT YOURSELF:
During a garden meeting collect places and facilities that should get a name tag or signpost. Together name these in all languages present in the garden. Create signs containing all these words and maybe even a drawing.
Spaces to be alone
People who have experienced trauma or who are living a very stressful daily life might sometimes want to be on their own. Try to create spaces in your garden where gardeners can spend some time without being disturbed or asked questions and indicate it clearly. This might be a hammock, a pergola or also a gardening bed where people agree to work silently.
Toilets
If your garden is close to your members’ homes or to a public institution it is probably easy to use the toilets there. If your garden is situated somewhere beneath forest and field you might think there is no need for a toilet. We have made a different experience. Especially women often don’t feel at ease spending longer periods of time in the garden without having access to proper toilet facilities – with the result that they might not show up at all.
A compost or separation toilet might solve the issue.
TRY OUT YOURSELF
Invite community members to imagine a garden day after a stressful week. Ask them to live through the day, wander through the garden in their minds, imagine what they would do and where they would be. What would they need to enjoy the garden even more?
or
Create a post box for wishes and needs, where people put their ideas that can then be discussed during the next garden meeting.
People of different backgrounds have different ideas how the cultivation of fruits and vegetables works. Community gardens can offer a great possibility to plant plants that people know from their childhood and to use their own planting techniques. The garden might be a source of herbs and vegetables that are hard to find on the market or that are very expensive when bought but are an important component of peoples’ diet.
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Be open minded when it comes to who wants to plant what and how, whether on individual plots or on a collective field. People with different garden experience might bring innovation to the garden.
Some example pictures:
At the same time agree on a few ground rules like “no use of synthetic pesticide and herbicides” or “no planting of invasive species or species that tend to spread all over the garden”
Also be aware which gardening techniques fit to your spot and which restrictions you have. Lower-lying beds, which are designed to collect water in areas of little precipitation, are probably not a good idea for clay soils in rainy areas. In some areas, sensitive to landscape or nature protection, the construction of structures like climbing aids or tomatoe huts might be prohibited.
Planning the garden often starts when you have a defined space where the garden shall be established. Although there is not yet a garden it is rarely ever a plain surface without any given circumstances and structure. So taking into account what is already there is an important starting point of the planning process. But also in an already running community garden establishing new areas or restructuring existing ones requires a planning process. In an intercultural garden some people might not be fluent in your common language. So planning tools that work with little spoken language might be helpful. Be also aware that people have different concepts of orientation. Including landmarks in your plan and maps can help to create a common understanding.
Here a few methods and approaches to garden planning that have a focus on non-verbal elements.
You find more information on the planning process in general in Learning pathway 1
Lesson Quiz
L3. How to identify and overcome barriers
In this chapter, we address different barriers that can arise in community gardens, particularly those with people from diverse backgrounds and experiences. From language differences to cultural communication styles, mental health challenges, and economic constraints, these barriers can impact participation and inclusivity. We emphasize the importance of recognizing these difficulties and focus on practical strategies, such as multilingual signposting, inclusive communication methods, and financial assistance.
Luckily gardening together works quite well without a common verbal language.
Nevertheless, not having a common verbal language is often perceived as a barrier. It makes people feel uncomfortable not to be able to express themselves and to share their thoughts and feelings the way they want or are used to. Try to reduce this barrier as much as possible and value multilinguality.
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Translation, interpretation as well as communication beyond verbal language are three key aspects of understanding in multilingual groups.
Interpretation for important things
You want to invite people who are not fluent in your common language to the garden or they are already part of your garden group? Especially when introducing the concept of intercultural gardening or explaining how the garden works, interpretation to their first language can be really helpful. Sometimes other gardeners speak both languages and can help out. Otherwise you can seek interpreters in befriended organisations. Asking children for interpretation – who are often more fluent in the common language – can be a good idea when it is all about nice and easy topics. In situations of conflict or problems it is not advisable to involve children.
Use of nonverbal language
When explaining something, try to use non-verbal means of communication as much as possible to support your explanation. Pointing at things you are talking about, miming actions or making positive or negative signs can be a great help. Instead of written explanations e.g. for the compost heap or the tool shed use graphics and drawings.
Translation of written information & multilingual signposts
If you have written information that should be accessible to everyone, like garden rules, information on how to join or welcoming messages, think of translating them to the languages spoken in your garden or in your neighbourhood. This shows your value of other languages and helps people to overcome language barriers.
As described in L2.T2 multilingual signs can help and also show that your garden group values other languages.
People with different backgrounds bring different perspectives to the garden. This is, in the first place, a great richness your whole group can profit from. Nevertheless, actions and behaviours that are perceived as positive for one person might cause bad feelings to others or might hinder their participation. Understanding differences and finding out what people need to contribute is important.
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An example of cultural differences are different habits of communication.
In many engaged and emancipatory groups it is common to sit in a circle and everyone is invited to share what works well in the group and what doesn’t, what problems occur and also what they don’t like and would like to change. At the same time for many people it feels impossible or very impolite to formulate critique in such a public setting. They would only do so in a one to one setting or when talking to a third person – a kind of mediator – who then talks to the other person. So to talk in a circle might be quite exclusive for some group members, even though it is not meant to be.
A tip from Gardens of Sanctuary:
“Seek feedback on your activities from people from as broad a range of backgrounds as possible.”
TRY OUT YOURSELF
Offer different ways of collecting ideas for improvement or feedback and find out what fits best to your group. Here a few suggestions:
- a box where people can drop in postcards or small letters with their idea or critique
- a person who is not part of the steering committee but designated as a contact person for complaints or ideas
- a talking circle with a talking stick
- informal conversations in smaller groups to talk about ideas and improvements
- an anonymous questionnaire (online or offline) after certain activities or as part of your end of the season reunion
Gender perceptions and different attitudes
Depending on where and how people are socialised their perception of gender and treatment of different genders might vary a lot. Also attitudes towards sexual orientation, other ethnic groups of the same Nationality or freedom of expression differ depending on how people grew up. Don’t be afraid to tackle such topics and lead open respectful discussions. This can help people to understand different perspectives. In all discussions make clear that discrimination of any kind is not tolerated.
Check if there are special needs in your group. E.g. some women might feel able to attend only female-only sessions. Also reflect on the distribution of tasks in your group and hidden gender stereotypes.
In recent years mental health issues became more and more prevalent among youth as well as grown ups. People who have fled or migrated under difficult circumstances are even more at risk to face mental health problems. People with mental health issues might come to the garden to relax and profit from the therapeutic qualities of gardening. Although they experience the garden as a safe environment their crisis, trauma or mental health problem does not leave them at the garden door. So especially in case you are working with refugees, be prepared and have a clear procedure, how to handle mental health issues.
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Unless your garden group has professionals who are trained to support people in mental crisis, don’t try to handle an occurring problem on your own. Be sensitive, what people need and at the same time very clear what you as an individual or group can offer and what not. Lending an ear to someone who simply needs someone who listens might be perfectly fine. Managing serious mental health problems needs professional support.
Taking people seriously and signposting them to supporting organisations and professionals can be something you can offer. In cases of emergency don’t hesitate to contact your local crisis team or call an ambulance.
To have people with diverse backgrounds in your garden group can also mean to deal with people with very different income situations. Be aware that some people face severe budget constraints and be prepared to support them in being part of the garden group without feeling humiliated.
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Free membership in the garden as well as support for transport, free seeds or plants, can be of great help to people with very restricted budgets. Also having a common meal at the end of a session (which has many other positive effects) increases access to high value fresh food for people in food poverty. To provide equipment like boots, gloves and transport in case of excursions is another asset.
Fundraising & subsidies
Having financial means without depending on your members’ contributions helps you to make your activities more inclusive. There are many opportunities for fundraising as a garden project:
- Have a garden party, invite the neighbourhood and ask for donations for food and drinks or produce from the garden (in line with your local regulations).
- Make a flea market.
- Ask local enterprises for support and offer visibility at your garden hut or fence.
- If you have the resources and some expertise in the group you can also start a crowdfunding campaign.
- Watch out for foundations that have a focus on intercultural encounter or environmental issues.
You can also approach your district or municipality officials to ask for support or check on regional and national funding schemes from social, migration or environmental departments.
Reimbursing volunteers
Some community gardens sell part of their produce and have found ways to reimburse people working in the garden for their effort. In case you are planning to do so make sure to be in line with regulations concerning the right to earn money of certain groups like asylum seekers.
Example Traiskirchen:
The Garden of Encounter in Traiskirchen, Austria, is an intercultural garden situated on public land. Many of the gardeners are asylum seekers. In Austria, asylum seekers are generally not permitted to work. They have established an activity called oriental breakfast, where they prepare a brunch together and people can come and donate for the food. This enables them to get a small remuneration.
Garden fees
Garden fees can be important to cover your project’s costs. They might also help to increase people’s commitment. In case you charge a fee to members of the garden or participants of garden activities, make sure there is an easy to apply discount or free of charge version for people who have little resources. This can be everyone giving depending on his or her possibility or having different schemes that people pay according to one’s own estimation.
