Garden for Oinofyta Camp Refugees

(The Garden plan)

We are looking to raise £3500 to build a flower and herb garden at Oinofyta Refugee Camp, Greece. As some of you may know Adam and I have been volunteering at the camp for the last two months working on projects (Me in the sewing room, Adam with carpentry workshops) that aim to promote engagement and wellbeing for camp residents. The work has been powerful, exciting and of course difficult at times but ultimately we have been able to really see a change in the mood of many of the residents and we would like to continue this work further; to create something that can benefit the whole camp. The garden will be something beautiful and will engage residents of all ages whether they are part of the building, planting and growing or just being inside this little community made sanctuary.
Oinofyta camp differs from many of the camps in Greece as it aims to empower and engage residents running the camp and making decisions about camp life and this concept will not stop with the garden. We will be working with residents every step of the way; engaging those with skills and those who want to learn. (Sheltered seating area, this will be covered with reclaimed bamboo we found in a skip!)
The sheltered seating areas (it gets 45 degrees here in summer) and flower beds will be made, for the most part using reclaimed wood, residents of all ages will be able to get involved with this but we will be running special sessions twice a week to work with the young males teens as this group has been identified as an at risk group. We will be running planting mornings with the women from the camp where they will get a chance to share their knowledge (there are many green fingered ladies at the camp) and also learn about local plants from a volunteer Greek gardener, Aais, who has offered to lend his services for free. Three times a week we will be working, in collaboration with the teachers at Armando Aid School to work with groups of children to plant seeds and nurture them to flower and also tend the garden; the aim here is to engage the young people, who can sometimes be a little boisterous and destructive, to feel a sense of ownership over the garden and create a keenness to look after it. In a bid to combat some of the waste at the camp, we will use old plastic cartons and old bottles as pots and seed trays.
Ultimately we want to create a beautiful place for people to relax; in an environment that can be incredibly bleak and stressful it is important for people to have a refuge where they can go to just be, there are many studies that show the benefits of being outside and in nature and we are trying to emulate that as best we can for the residents of Oinofyta.
The money will be used to buy wood needed to build safe, secure frames for the sheltered seating areas; the beds will be made from pallets.
Unfortunately there is no soil at the camp so this will needed to be brought in from a nearby farm; some of the money will go to this.
We are lucky enough to have a several fabricators at the camp and are going to enlist their skills to build a large arch at the entrance to the camp using scrap metal (see pictures for design) for this we will also need to rent a welding rig.We will buy plants and seeds from local garden stores to plant in the garden.
Originally Adam and I had anticipated volunteering here until the end of March, now with this new project we want to stay till the end of June when we estimate this project will be completed. We would, therefore use a small portion of the money raised to aid us in this. It is our intention to leave funds to continue to support the upkeep and maintenance of the garden in the future, in our experience often when project leads have finished it can be difficult to maintain projects and ideas as future needs have not been incorporated into planning, this we would like to avoid.



Any donation big or small is much appreciated and we are also looking for volunteers with some carpentry or growing experience to help with any and all of the phases of the project. If this is something that might interested in please contact me at. Thanks for your time!!
 
(Here is a picture of the space before we start)