Diverse vegetable gardens

In 2016, during Save The Children’s “UndeRadio” and “Fuoriclasse” projects, we built three small synergistic vegetable garden together with children and young people from three different schools, in Campania and Calabria. 

The expression “synergistic vegetable garden” indicates a cultivation methodology where different plant species are grown together in the same field, as opposed to what happens in monocultures, where rows of the same vegetable are repeated as far as the eye can see. The result of diversity is a healthier, more sustainable and more beautiful garden.

In the synergistic garden, different plants help each other so that they can all live better, while safeguarding the ecosystem in which they live. By building a garden together, children learn that it is possible to intervene directly on the spaces they inhabit, appropriating the right and responsibility to define them.

In the same way, the continuous reference to terms such as “integration”, “differences”, “altruism”, “help” allows children to relate to these issues in a fun and active way, so that the concepts dealt with, even if applied to the world plants, can be transported autonomously on a human and social level.

Building something for someone else is the first lesson that remains in terms of active participation against discrimination.