The “GROWING COMMUNITIES: Empowerment through social permaculture” project addressed to two important challenges in Europe: social inclusion and environmental and climate goals, by using an innovative approach to social permaculture, community gardening and sustainable lifestyles. The aim of this project was to enable adults, with focus on vulnerable adults, to acquire a wide set of skills, knowledge and competences needed for participating actively in modern society in a lifelong perspective, such as critical thinking, civic and environmental awareness, food autonomy and learning for healthy lifestyles. The project was build on the know-how of 3 organizations from Spain (EDUPLUS Association), Germany (Kulturlabor - Try & Error) and Romania (DOMINOU Association). The target groups and final beneficiaries were adults, with focus on disadvantaged adults. In Spain, EDUPLUS worked with adults and seniors from rural areas in Tenerife. In Romania, DOMINOU engaged adults that do traditional family agriculture for subsistence and seniors that have small gardens in rural areas. In Germany, TRIAL & ERROR involved adults in precarious financial situations, adults and youth with migration background and language obstacles. By using social permaculture as an approach in community gardens, the partners developed educational tools, which made it possible for adults, including vulnerable groups to engage, feel involved, enjoy the learning process and develop personal, social and environmental skills. The ¨Growing communities¨ partnership developed 3 intellectual outputs: 1. A European Educational model to empower adult educators to teach learners, including adults from disadvantaged backgrounds, to become true factors of change in their local communities. Available in EN at https://growingcommunities.es/resources/educational-model/. 2. Bite-size learning tools - a set of training and self-paced learning materials (OER) that support disadvantaged groups and adult educators in implementing transformative community processes. Available in 4 languages (EN, ES, DE and RO) at https://growingcommunities.es/resources/teasers/ as well as in the format of compendia. 3. An Engagement program that increased motivation for participation in society of 120 adults, with focus on those with fewer possibilities, where they exchanged experiences with peers during 15 micro-trainings and social activities. This output includes a Guide for facilitators of micro-trainings and a Guide of best practices, that can be downloaded in EN at https://growingcommunities.es/resources/downloads/. Additionally to what was initially planned, the partners created 10 versatile activities (lessons plans with materials and annexes) that are published on the website both in an interactive format https://growingcommunities.es/resources/activities/ and as downloadable PDFs and Word documents. During the project, partners transferred innovative models of using urban community gardening for social inclusion as well as innovative models on permaculture, alternative food networks and engaging methodologies to teach sustainable lifestyles. These models complement each other and resulted in a more comprehensive and innovative methodology on social permaculture. The developed educational materials help reflecting on solutions on how to design resilient communities and environments through social permaculture. By applying permaculture system design to natural environments the participants could learn how to make community gardens (and nature) more resilient to climate change and other changes. By applying social permaculture at group and societal level, the members of the community gardens got empowered and learnt how to develop beneficial relationships, appreciate diversity and solve conflicts. ¨Growing communities¨ project trained 14 adult educators on teaching sustainability based on positive engagement methodology (unlike fear-inducing climate change education during the last decades). In addition, it focused on teaching critical thinking applied to changing behaviours, production and consumption patterns and (un)healthy lifestyles in disadvantaged adults and seniors. All intellectual outputs were tested during the international Joint staff training event in Berlin, where 14 adult educators were trained as facilitators of non-formal and informal education, who were equipped to organize the micro-trainings and social networking activities part of the Engagement program. The outputs were also tested during the national micro-trainings with 120 participants, that were facilitated by the trained facilitators. Pictures and news about the local activities and national micro-trainings were published on the project´s Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/growingcommunitiesproject. The project results remain open for use by all interested audiences at https://growingcommunities.es.
The aim of this project was to enable adults, with focus on vulnerable adults, to acquire a wide set of skills, knowledge and competences needed for participating actively in modern society in a lifelong perspective, such as critical thinking, civic and environmental awareness, food autonomy and learning for healthy lifestyles. Specific objectives were: 1. To create and test an European Educational model to empower adult educators to teach learners, including adults from disadvantaged backgrounds, to become true factors of change in their local communities. 2. To create and test bite-size learning tools, a set of training and self-paced learning materials available as open educational resources (OER) that support disadvantaged groups and adult educators in implementing transformative community processes. 3. To increase motivation for participation in society of 60 adults, with focus on those with fewer possibilities, who will participate in the Engagement program, exchange experience during micro-trainings and social activities with peers.
The project responds to two important challenges in Europe: social inclusion and environmental goals. We identified a scarcity of educational materials that combine permaculture, community gardening, sustainability and social inclusion (especially in national languages such as Romanian). The project wanted to develop approaches of using permaculture and community gardening as tools to promote social inclusion. Our target groups were adults from disadvantaged rural areas or problematic suburban neighbourhoods dealing with loneliness, economic instability and risk of social exclusion. In Spain, EDUPLUS worked with adults and seniors from rural areas in Tenerife. In Romania, the organisation DOMINOU engaged adults that do traditional family agriculture for subsistence and seniors that have small gardens in rural areas. In Germany, TRIAL & ERROR involved adults in precarious financial situations, adults and youth with migration background and language obstacles. By using social permaculture as an approach in community gardens, we developed educational tools, which made it possible for adults, including vulnerable groups to engage, feel involved, enjoy the learning process and develop personal, social and environmental skills.