This story was originally published by Reasons to be Cheerful
On a warm morning in June, dozens of people have gathered in a community garden in Traiskirchen, a small town just outside Vienna best known for its refugee center, which is the largest in Austria. The Middle Eastern breakfast, freshly prepared every Saturday in the open kitchen, has become a staple in the town’s social calendar. There’s fresh falafel, generous portions of flatbread, hummus and baba ghanoush, and crisp slices of bell peppers, tomatoes and cucumbers from the organic garden. Colorful canopies above the tables offer some much-needed shade, and a rousing chorus of “Happy Birthday” mixes with the squealing laughter of children running around.
In the garden, people from the refugee center next door are tending to the neat rows of herbs, vegetables and fruit with the help of head gardener Ahmad Makhzoum. The harvest is split equally three ways — a third is sold at the garden’s vegetable stall to support the project, a third is donated to the town’s sozialmärkt, or social market, a non-profit supermarket that caters to people on lower incomes, and the remaining third is freely available to those working at the garden.
“We try to create a place where everyone feels comfortable. They do something in the garden, because working in the garden is fun for everyone, it reduces stress,” says Gholam Mohammadi, who runs the vegetable stall. “But if we notice that someone is unwell, then we’re there for them.”
It’s a scene that would have been unimaginable 10 years ago. In the summer of 2015, Traiskirchen’s refugee center made international headlines due to its extreme overcrowding: Around 4,500 asylum seekers were assigned to the center, despite the fact that it was only designed to house 1,800. The resulting living conditions were deemed “inhumane” by Amnesty International investigators, with 1,500 people sleeping outdoors in tents and makeshift shelters.
To give new arrivals stuck in bureaucratic limbo a meaningful way to spend their time and connect with the community, a group of locals and refugees convinced the municipal government to give them a 2.5-acre plot of land abutting the refugee center.
The post The Community Gardens Where Refugees Are Putting Down Roots appeared first on Reasons to be Cheerful.
