SET, IJBURG AMSTERDAM – HERB, VEGETABLE, HEALING, RECREATIONAL AND CHILDREN´S GARDEN FOR SOCIAL INTEGRATION| THE NETHERLANDS | 2018 –

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The story

SET is a temporary residential building for young refugees (with a permit) and Dutch students living together, building up a community with each other and the neighborhood. When the Amsterdam Municipality came up with this initiative we lived already here in this neighborhood. As a migrant woman myself I wanted to see, to feel how integration looks like in the Netherlands. That was the time when thousands of refugees were stranded outside the major railway-stations in the Hungarian capital Budapest. I left that country not that long before. I felt desperate and frustrated. It was quite obvious that I had to actively participate around this new initiative.

I wanted to get answers to my questions:

What is home? Where do we belong to? How do we connect? – through the language; through our interests in common or our shared past, present or future? Who am I? What motivates me on my journey to move on? Where do I belong to? How can I find my place, inner peace, balance?

And as always the answers do not come directly. They arrive when you do not expect they to come. They come when your are cooking together with your neighbors from all over the world; Pakistan, Iran, Syria, Eritrea and from the Jordan, Amsterdam. When you realize that all these countries have something like our pogácsa but we all have a little different ingredients and different words for it.

We have been living next to each other in the same neighborhood. And this samenleving – how the Dutch says – inspired me to take more concrete steps forward. That inspired me to use my profession and knowledge and bring the European IRIS project to our integration process: to understand better how our intimate relationships play a role in integration, how intimacy works across cultures. And that inspired me to continue with gardening here. Gardening again. Something that I simply love to do.

We started to plant seeds in the few boxes we got from the Municipality…

And a year later, in 2019 we have a plan to build a real garden, a green island in the city: a Community garden for social integration. A garden which could be a safe place for integration, arrival. A space where people would heal their traumas of migration, can have a rest without being pressed to do anything particular. This garden would be a place for work, for learning, for art, for therapy, just for being. This would be a place without labels, without special aims, where people would keep their dignity and respect.

Here is the concrete design for SET Community gardens in 2020 made by Towards Nature Permaculture Landscaping.

BEFORE

The garden may be the place of various births; birth of ideas, desires, inspiration…the garden is a metaphor but also real, physical full of smells of dirt, rain, flowers. I am proud being on board with the Art and Act – Marie Marzloff Award 2020: ´2020 has globally redefined our common lives as we have been forced to reconcieve them both in terms of time and space, leading us to a profound reflection on the social changes which will follow. As crisis exacerbates inequalities, new perspectives on dialogue and cooperation are emerging just when they seem more necessary than ever. ´More about the contest: http://cesie.org/en/artandact/.

2021 Summer!

before: work in progress…

After

and then the first opening for people who joined the moestuin group:

This video is about the opening of SET & Buurt Community Gardens, growing boxes area(Moestuinen). We wanted to share with you the feeling of Community building and a fantastic opening day for people’s growing boxes area. We are proud to design and implement this Community Gardens. We are also thankful and grateful for the compliments, help and support from this newly building community.www.towardsnature.net

and the official opening 26 June 2021…

People behind the garden…: interview with me and with Tayfun Yalcin, permaculture designer, Towards Nature. Others would come…

In 2024 we are further…. Not only the garden became a real green place full with flowers but socially we are also now a real community, a safe and popular place for the neighborhood. But actually, there are many arriving from further, even from different countries to us.

“Building the shed yesterday was really healing for me. The little girl, the young woman and the old granma are growing strong in me. Thank you.” Faina, 65, from Curacao

April 2024. I am more than proud. We received the New European Bauhaus Award for “regaining the sense of belonging” in the category of “beauty, inclusion and sustainability“. Although the real award is not as fancy as a ceremony in Brussels – all the struggles, the learnings we made together during our work. And all the joy, the happy and intimate moments in the garden, the simple beauty every day… but I am still very happy to get this important European recognition for our work. This makes us and our messages, our voice stronger, our daily power more visible. We have received a prize for our effort in the category of “regaining the sense of belonging. The ‘prize” is a bit misleading, I personally don’t think that our civil work is comparable; all of our efforts in our different contexts are super needed to make the world a better, healthier and happier place …. there are so many amazing initiatives, but, still. The occasion that NEB has created for us to meet and connect was crucial, big thank for that.

Here is the whole ceremony. Our moment is at the 33.33 min. https://voda.akamaized.net/europa/museum/20240412-pm.html

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