Gardens of the Future is a sustainable garden for women refugees

A garden that will support women refugees to become agro-entrepreneurs and secure economic freedom; while it communicates environmental values in urban society.

Solution context

Cities in Cyprus struggle to lessen carbon footprint and more and more urban space is insufficiently used. 
Cyprus has an unsustainable cultivating, processing and distributing food change and is ranked among the countries with the most food waste in Europe. In addition, in Cyprus, we accept a high number of asylum seekers every year. Those are the main problems that our solution tackles with a sustainable solution.

Solution description

Gardens of the Future provide for women entrepreneurs, a garden where they can plant their vegetables and fruits to feed their families as well as create their own products (jams for instance) and become economically independent. This place will provide all the necessary equipment so they can produce their product along with learning how to become agro-entrepreneurs. We will create a sustainable food supply for refugee women, their families and their communities respectively. Our solution creates a small sustainable circular economy of enterprises to be able to live as respected citizens. We aim to start creating such space in abandoned houses in the center of Nicosia (one of which we already own) and then scale this to public parks in the city center.

Gardens of the Future is an innovative space and a symbol of the urban form where people co-create for a more sustainable future. This approach establishes a fertile ground on which design, as the vehicle, has the capacity to empathize, to facilitate collaboration and add value to society. The future state we envision included economic empowerment, independence, and sustainable growth. The specific initiative "Gardens of the Future"aims to spark the beginning of how urban unitilized space can be exploited by the people for the people.