Green-Up! Aimed to develop the prototype of a CARING GARDEN: an ideal community vegetable garden designed for the social inclusion of youth suffering from poor mental health (Social Anxiety Disorder): • To produce and share online the prototype of a CARING GARDEN • To improve partner organizations’ capacity to respond to the mental health needs of youth • To facilitate 12 youth workers’ acquisition of new competences • To include young people and the community in the development of the prototype
It is becoming more common nowadays to observe the disaggregation of human bonds (2021, The care collective). What we are losing is the social dimension of care, which became a central topic during the COVID-19 Pandemic. Therefore, the Green-Up! aimed to bring back the relevance that the community and social bonds play in taking care of vulnerable people, as it can be considered as the most important way for achieving inclusion. In particular, the project aimed to foster social inclusion of youth, by developing a prototype of an ideal space, for creating meaningful human bonds inside their community of belonging. Due to the community dimension that the project brings to care for the vulnerable, the prototype has been denominated CARING GARDEN. Community gardens have been chosen, because they bring benefits on many levels: they not only promote healthier lifestyles, but it is demonstrated that the activity of growing and nurturing plants, as well as spending time in a natural and soothing environment, plays an important role for stress relief and mental wellness. Community gardens also help the youth and community members to develop green skills, especially in terms of production and consumption.