Bonn › International Garden Since spring 2007, Bonn, the former capital, which today has 314,000 inhabitants, also has its own international garden. For the past several years the "Wissenschaftsladen Bonn e. V." (Bonn Science Shop, Inc.) a non-profit association for citizen oriented knowledge-transfer, has been lobbying in the political arena for the basic idea to create a horticultural project for Bonn's immigrant families. Today, passed by a nonpartisan and unanimous decision of the town council, an approx. 3,000 square meter space - part of a shut down city nursery, is being made available to about 25 gardening families, who come from 15 different countries.As with other garden projects, the Bonn International Garden is first of all about the connection of collaborative gardening in strengthening self-organizational vigor. In connection with the wholesome, and in this particular case, the healing experience of the self-reliant gardeners, and by the exchange with other gardening families, the families will win "new ground under their feet" and out of a new social situation important competence in social and language skills and possibly professional esteem can be established as well.  This attempt at a social re-orientation through personal stabilization also has, in the case of the Bonn International Garden, a socio-spatial component. The area lies on a big vacant lot in the inner city, at the same time, however, directly neighbors a part of town with so-called "special development needs". A large number of the gardeners out of this section could be won for the Bonn International Garden, so that the developments in the garden will probably also have a feed back effect on the further development of this part of the city as well as other neighboring regions of Bonn. For the time being the focus of Bonn International Garden lies, of course, in the reclamation of the freshly cleared areas. By the joint work in constructing paths and common areas, by the efforts towards an urgently needed constant water supply and the mutual support in the preparation of each others "plots", the different gardeners' families should be able to stabilize quickly as a collective. The Bonn Science Shop will take part in this process as the party responsible for the project, primarily in an organizational capacity and in regard to the public, because its role is basically that of a catalyst. In mid and long term, the Bonn International Garden lives on the self-reliant engagement of its gardeners who experience the project as belonging to them and with themselves in the creative role. |