The Liberation Garden

 A demonstration garden in a refugee camp

It may be hard to imagine beautiful flowers growing in a desert surrounded by misery and poor conditions; however, this is a reality in the camp of Domiz, located in the Kurdish region of Northern Iraq. This camp settled in 2012 provides shelter for more than 32,000 of Syrian refugees. Since 2015 the non-profit organization, Lemon Tree Trust, began taking action in the camp and helping the people sheltered there by planting some trees and developing home gardens. Two years later, in 2017, the organization opened and developed the first urban agriculture demonstration garden, which received the name of Azadi (liberation in Kurdish).

The Liberation Garden aims at demonstrating, educating, and supporting small-scale growing with the purpose of sharing different techniques used in small-scale food production within the camp. Thanks to this garden many needed families without financial incomes can be provided with vegetables and fruits without having to buy them outside since they are growing them by themselves. Moreover, many unemployed people who used to work in agriculture or used to have a garden at home now are employed and can feel closer to their home in Syria.

The garden is composed by four main areas distributed according to different needs: there is an area for greenhouses, another one for livestock in which some animals like chickens or rabbits are bred, a recreational space for men and another just for women and children. The non-profit organization decided to create an area only for women in order to empower those who are divorcees, widows or have many children, and give them the chance to grow their own vegetables and feed their own families. Some of the profits from the garden go to workers and cover daily or monthly wages.​

The purpose of this project is a wonderful and inspiring idea to help those who were forced to flee from their country due to a civil war and are living with their families in these camps; at least with this garden they can try to make from this place a home, as one of the residents of the camp claimed: “Where there is green, there is happiness”.

If you are interested in the project or want to hear the stories of some refugees working in the Liberation Garden, you can check the website of the organization, in which you will find some explanatory videos:

https://lemontreetrust.org/film-and-interactive/