 Leipzig › Colourful Gardens Leipzig The Project "Bunte Gärten Leipzig", that was launched in 2002, focuses especially on the integration of asylum seekers and refugees into the everyday life in Germany. It offers intercultural interaction and promotes the communication and cooperation between the immigrants and the local population. The "Bunte Gärten Leipzig", which has also been awarded several times, aims at developing suggestive fields of activity for immigrants, facilitating relations to other groups and creating new perspectives through a large variety of qualifications. The core idea of the project was in the first instance, to jointly cultivate a former garden site with vegetables, herbs and flowers, and then to harvest and sell the products on the market. How familiar many immigrants indeed are with these activities can be seen during the sprout and in its outcome. The immigrants have the chance to manage their own plot, but what is especially important is the joint planning and care taking of the garden site. Due to discussions about ecological cultivation methods, the designing of a playground, the conversion of a stock shed to a tea house, the building of a stone oven and various other activities the communication between the participants and therefore the use of the German language is promoted. Today there are 50 people in the garden who actively participate on a regular basis. Amongst them are some from Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Afghanistan, Yugoslavia and Azerbaijan. The Germans who participate and contribute are all volunteering. First successes were achieved with education courses (German courses, alphabetisation). The courses were financed by the profit made with the sale of the garden products on local markets. |