Young Gardeners  Urban Gardens for Youth

Urban gardening, urban agriculture or urban farming, is the practice of cultivating, processing, and distributing food in or around a village, town, or city. It’s a broad definition which includes several scenarios, from huge farms for intensive production to local gardens managed by social movements for sustainable communities, where organic growers, ‘foodies,’ and ‘locavores’ form social networks at a local level. Urban gardens often reflect the characteristics of the area.They are usually supported by non-profit organizations and are an economic added value in low-income areas providing food and answering other needs. In developing countries, held land.  

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) asserts that urban vegetable gardens can be much more ecological and efficient than traditional ones, producing as much as 20 kg of food per year per square metre. We explain to you what this domestic horticulture involves and how to set up a vegetable garden at home.Urban agriculture is changing the landscape in cities, with thousands of small-scale operations proliferating that are growing plants and raising animals either at ground level or on rooftops and terraces. This sustainable movement, which many countries still do not recognise as a formal activity, is practised by 800 million people worldwide and helps low-income citizens save money on food purchases, according to the FAO. In light of these aspects, we have decided to share the experience of young people that we already have and make them teach their experiences to the other young people from different countries to increase the involvement of disadvantaged populations to the communities as urban gardeners.  

Urban gardens are promoting the young people engagement with the soil and the nature and make them understand about the food security and promotes their engagement in the rural areas to the agricultural processes.As Verdesur Association, within our ESC Programme, we have been implementing Urban Garden trainings for the young people in our community and involving our ESC volunteers, young people and adult population to development of the garden for 2 years now. During the project, we plan to cover the following themes related to urban gardening : settlement of the urban gardens, climate change, food security and the biodiversity. With covering these themes, the participants will develop their own urban gardens in their own communities within the premises of the participating organisations and we will create the big one in Alcalá la Real with the help of local community and the participants. The young people from the community will engage the development of the urban garden jointly and the participants will experience the process in Spain first, prior to developing the urban gardens in their communities.  

The specific objectives of the project:  

- To increase the understanding of the issues concerning food security among young people in Europe and neighbouring countries

- To qualify young people as urban gardeners to create urban gardens in their own communities with theoretical and practical skills concerning Urban gardening

- To make young people aware about the benefits of the urban gardens in the daily life

- To increase the young people's skills on gardening and development of urban gardens and making them reflected concerning to issues of agricultural production in urban areas

- To create a local impact in Alcalá la Real by including local community engage in the urban gardening process to make them benefit from this directly