VISION

Greening The Camps is a non-profit organisation that designs, develops, builds and maintains rooftop gardens in Palestinian refugee camps. The project is driven by our passion for environment and earthcare and our understanding of urban design and its toolsets. Sharing and gathering knowledge, as well as creating a truly sustainable livelihood are closely linked with our devotion to enrich impoverished urban and camp areas. The multi-layered process is, on every level, guided by the ideas and desires of the local community with whom we work. Through reconnecting displaced communities with food production from urban agricultural practices, we try to create opportunities for local empowerment and economic development. 

Urban agriculture

Urban agriculture is the cultivation of plants and animals in an urban environment. This form of agriculture is strongly integrated in and intertwined with the urban social, economic and ecological system. Agriculture in an urban environment provides physical and psychosocial benefits for urban residents. Urban debris, such as organic waste and wastewater, are deployed and up-cycled as valuable resources. This form of agriculture addresses consumers and incorporates them in the decision making process. It transforms the passive consumer into an active producer, who becomes aware of the intransparent food industry. Urban agriculture has a direct impact on urban ecology, resulting in a growing biodiversity. This in turn creates a healthier living environment. A majority of contemporary city dwellers have lost their relationship with their food supply. The distance between locations of food production and consumption has resulted in the art of growing and harvesting healthy crops being lost. This displaced affiliation has an even more damaging impact on the climate and vulnerable ecosystems. Urban agriculture becomes an essential part of the urban food system and propagates the creation of a circular economy where resources, produce and waste don’t leave the urban environment. Hence, it minimizes the contributors’ footprints in terms of transportation, food and water wastage. Urban agriculture is about more than food; it approaches sustainability, health and social justice, reflects on scarce resources and the empowerment of communities.

FUTURE FOOD / FUTURE CITY

Future Food/Future City is an open-air demonstration of possibility; an imagined future for the city’s public spaces, and a re-examined illustration of how our rooftops, gardens, streets, and schools could be transformed into green spaces that bring communities together and transform livelihoods. It introduces a holistic approach that tackles different parts of the food chain; the way food is grown, processed, transported, consumed, reused, and recycled. 

The swiftly evolving food technologies of hydroponics, aquaponics, and aeroponics are revolutionizing the way we produce our food and utilize and interpret our cities and countrysides. The exhibition engages audiences in a leap into the future with the use of digital tools, as well as a return to past artisanal rituals, common resources, and agricultural practices of organic farming and permaculture. 

Text by Amman Design Week,Video by Labiba Productions

Collaboration

Amman Design Week

Possibilities! 

Under the theme of Possibilities, the designers behind Greening The Camps created several modular system structures, used as information booths and food kiosks, which were reused as urban rooftop farms in Gaza Camp, Jerash.

Funded by Investbank and supported by Yasamin Landscape and Gardening.

MICRO-GARDENS, GAZA CAMP, JERASH

FAMILY BASED ROOFTOP GARDENS

As a continuation to the Future Food / Future City showcase at Amman Design Week 2019, Greening the Camps’ pieces were moved to the Gaza Refugee Camp in Jerash and were repurposed as farming and food growing booths. 

To assure a fruitful implementation of the project, the families were closely involved in the building process and participate in educative workshops about urban farming and plant care. 

Photos by Arthur Delarge

TEAM

Evi Hellebaut

Co-Founder, Designer & Media Manager

27, Belgium, Architect and Warm-Hearted Soul

Reborn as Daisy

This project creates a necessary awareness about the poor conditions in the region. Working actively together with a community on topics that are dear to me is a very enriching experience. Positively improving women’s and youth’s self esteem by creating a green open space where they can develop themselves, building on a more sustainable way of living and creatively working together on a greener environment and a healthier diet are challenging but rewarding.

Machiel van Nieuwenhove

Co-Founder, Creative Manager & Designer

27, Belgium, Architect and Designer

Reborn as Mulberry tree

Greening the camps is an idea that got out of control. It is a dream that has become practice. It is a realisation of theory and research by design. Imagined by the brains and built by the hands of many volunteers, this incremental project carries a tangible vision for a green and common future of plenty for all.

Marwa Ershaidat

Project Manager

30, Jordan / Turkey / France, Mama Bear and Feminist

Reborn as Almond Flower

The project is necessary for our physical and mental health, but also for our survival. It’s part of a long-term vision of the future that we can embrace. The environment is as much a priority as political issues and conflicts in the region. Plants are alive, like us, and we need to take care of them like we take care of ourselves and each other. “Don’t forget to drink water and get some sun because you’re basically a plant with more complicated emotions”.

Yazan Abozaineddin

Field Coordinator & Carpenter

22, Jordan, Handicraftsman

Reborn as Walnut Tree

This project is pushing me one step away from a system that is destroying our beautiful earth. And moving forward to push this system away from it.

Murad Salameh

Agricultural Specialist & Designer

27, Jordan, Architect

Reborn as Oak Tree

Greening the Camps is a magical journey with other living things, a journey of survival and change.

Joric Docters van Leeuwen

Co-founder

28, Netherlands, Adventurer and Viking

Reborn as European searocket

What is really important for me in this project is awareness. By building the first garden in Amman we were able to attract a lot of volunteers, who were in Jordan just to spend their holiday. Some of them also joined us to Jerash Camp, and some of them decided to come back after their holiday to volunteer for longer periods. To see people whose first priority was having a good time during their holiday give up some time to help us build these green spaces and opening themselves up to learn more about people’s situations in the camp has been an amazing motivator for me in this project.

Kristina Kaghdo

Volunteer

30, Syria / Lithuania, Jadal Team Member

Reborn as Magnolia Tree

“Earth doesn’t belong to us, we belong to Earth.”

Reem Kiwan

Project Officer

22, Palestine, Student

Reborn as Blue Jasmine

This project provides open work space for many people and it made me passionate about plants because of its simplicity in creating a useful green space.

Jule Elsäßer

Architectural Intern

21, Germany, Goofball

Reborn as Lotus Flower

Greening the camps is from people for people. Awesome people from all over the world come together and move rocks to bring greenery into concrete jungles, to give people an opportunity and happiness. Back to the roots, plant your own food and you’ll know what matters in life: healthy plant, healthy you.

Fadi Amireh

Founder Jadal 

36, Jordan, Founder of Jadal

Reborn as Marijuana Plant

This project is a revolution. It’s one of the effective ways to overcome capitalism, become producers instead of consumers, live green and healthy.

Greta Aigner

Content Creator

23, Germany, Student and Wordplay Addict

Reborn as Magnolia Tree

I fell in love with the project, because it succeeds in reviving the cultivation of own crops while combining ordinary methods with modern forms of urban agriculture and reusing material that people consider as garbage. The full engagement of the community makes this project unique. Accompanying families from the construction of the garden over harvesting the first vegetables to finally cooking delicious recipes creates space where volunteers and inhabitants meet on equal footing to share knowledge and experience.

Laurenz Vanbekbergen

Intern Sustainable Development

23, Belgium,Education Generalist & Traveler

Reborn as African Savannah Tree

When I first read about the project I was immediately motivated. At that time I was searching for an internship within the context of sustainable development and this project seemed perfect. Machiel, Joric and Evi seem like friendly and motivated entrepreneurs and I could immediately start working. A healthy workplace where there’s room for creativity.

FORMER COLLABORATORS

Farah Abdel Jawas – Volunteer

Rana Abdel-Hamid – Volunteer

Aisha Alseddiq – Volunteer

Nada Atieh – Volunteer 

Malek J. Al-Raggad – Volunteer  

Diana Al-Zubi – Volunteer 

Dina Amro – Volunteer

Pavel Borecky – Volunteer 

Tayler Bunchan – Volunteer

Sky Emerald – Architectural Intern

Martina Fabris – Architectural Intern 

Ala’a Khoury – Sandmaster

Hannes Hellebaut – Volunteer

Kelly Heuten – Volunteer 

Gina Hu – Volunteer

Anne Katrine Jensen – Volunteer 

Michael Kegyes – Volunteer 

Sophy Levy – Grant Writer

Tatiana Meijer-Lippert – Volunteer

Zayd Mseis – Volunteer 

Anas Mubaideen – Video-editor

Geronimo Ominoreg – Volunteer 

Christina Pianca – Volunteer

Tina Pinxten – Volunteer 

Christian Promberger – Volunteer 

Lennert Rasking – Volunteer 

Mariam Rukundo – Volunteer

Waleed Sheikh Yassin – Volunteer

Lipace Su – Volunteer

Saif Yousif – Jadal Team

Omar Tarefi – Volunteer 

Lennart Van Nieuwenhove – Volunteer

Emmanuel Van Oost – Volunteer

Mohammed Zakaria – Camera Operator

Gaza Camp

Jerash, Jordan  

Jerash Camp, locally known as Gaza Camp, is one of ten officially recognised Palestinian refugee camps in Jordan. It is situated in the north of the country, a one-hour drive from Amman and close to the Syrian border. Since its establishment in 1968 it has steadily grown to a size that provides shelter for more than 29. 000 Palestinian refugees today. The campsite is part of the Jerash Governorate, the smallest of the 12 Jordanian Governorates. It includes 22 villages and two Palestinian refugee camps: Gaza Camp and Souf Camp. According to statistics gathered by the FaFo Institute for Applied International Studies in 2013, Jerash Camp counts as one of the poorest camps in Jordan having more than 50 % of Palestinians living below the national poverty line of JD 814 per year. Only 12 % of refugees are covered by health insurance. When analysing the natural environment one notices that the dense concrete fabric of the refugee camp lacks the necessary fertile lands. This scarcity of green space in combination with a threatening shortage of water in the region has caused a severe disconnection of the current generation with agriculture. Rooftop gardens address this directly by inserting a green oasis where a family or community can grow its own food provision, find rest and foster their connection with nature.

Cultural Heritage

Farming roots in Palestinian Culture

For more than thousand years agriculture and farming has been a crucial part of Palestinian culture. It is seen as an integral component of peoples’ communal, cultural, economic and social life. Hence, it is all the more staggering to observe the on-going systematic alienation of the Palestinian farmer from the land and the increasing disappearance of agriculture while the service industry is rapidly growing. Beside the fact that familiar phenomena like urbanisation and globalisation contributed to a growing rural exodus, the disconnection of land as a sustainable resource has further been accelerated by the conflict between Israel and Palestine. Since the 1950’s, water restrictions in Palestinian territories have been a major challenge for the agricultural sector. The scarcity of water forced farmers to reduce the plant diversity and focus on crops that could prosper with less irrigation such as olive and palm trees. Since the dispute has been characterized by the struggle over land/territorial sovereignty, it had also a major impact on the distribution of fertile land. Over time many Palestinian farmers faced restricted access to or significant loss of their land due to Israeli nature reserves, military zones and settlements that were established on the farming fields.

Uncertain living conditions and unpromising perspectives in the agricultural sector forced many Palestinians to reorientate themselves within the service field that promised higher salaries as part of the Israeli economic integration and containment policies.

What do we want to achieve?

Greening the Camps wants to reconnect local communities with their cultural heritage of farming. One of our aims is to create awareness of the distance between the locations of food production and consumption in order to stop the on-going alienation of organic produce. With this in mind, the rooftop garden is the beginning of a self-sufficient economy that is created and maintained by manual work. To work with recycled material, to make use of biological compost to fertilize and the permanent reuse of wastewater is part of our vision to contribute to an environmental sustainability. Furthermore, the rooftop gardens should be a space for ideas and creativity – a tiny green oasis where the family can grow its own food provision, find rest and a refuge to escape the daily routine.

Community

Women & Youth

Engagement of the Community

One of our main visions is the permanent engagement of the local community in the campsite. Through reconnecting displaced communities with food production from urban agricultural practices, we try to create opportunities for local empowerment, economic development and healthier diet. Our aim is to design, build and maintain urban farms closely together with families that desire to turn their rooftops into green surfaces. Within the building and running process of rooftop gardens, we strive for a closed circular system where resources and produce don’t leave the cycle. In order to establish a circular economy, we focus on recycling and reusing material considered as waste and outbalance the resource scarcity with adjusted installations, such as rain water harvesters or solar boilers. Inside the community we decided to focus especially on working with women, youth and children. The project should empower them to explore and develop their talents, to improve their food-security and general livelihood. Furthermore, the rooftop gardens should serve as a safe-haven and refuge from the daily routine while providing a working space for socially and economically disadvantaged groups excluded by society.

Workshops

Sprouting Interest

An important part of our work will be the organisation of workshops that vary in type (e.g. lecture and practical courses such as planting and cooking), size (family, friends or community) and social groups (special events to focus on women, youth and children). To be more precise, the seminars encompass lectures about alternative forms of farming and the importance of biodiverse planting as well as practical courses about recycling processes and other cost-saving strategies to reuse material. In order to close the cycle of food production, we will organize cooking courses with recipes that are adapted to the cultivated crops from the roof. Here, it must be underlined that once families have gained experience and gathered knowledge about urban farming, we want to empower women and youth to take leading roles as teachers in the workshops. By organizing these events we do not only want to link people with similar mindsets within the community and offer space to be creative together, but also foster the exchange between volunteers and refugees.

APN (2017). The 3rd Million Trees Campaign (MTC III). http://apnature.org/en/content/3rd-million-trees-campaign-mtc-iii. Last Accessed 13 July 2017.

Pinxten, T./Rasking, L./Van Niewenhove, M./Van Oost, E. (2015). Towards a territorial and urban integration of Gaza Camp (Jordan). The main road as mediating figure. Leuven: KU Leuven, Department of Architecture. p. 21-24.

UNCTAD (2015). The Besieged Palestinian Agricultural Sector. www.unctad.org/en/PublicationsLibrary/gdsapp2015d1_en.pdf. Last Accessed 13 July 2017.

UNRWA (2016). Where we work. https://www.unrwa.org/where-we-work/jordan. Last Accessed 13 July 2017.

UNRWA (2013). Insights into the socio-economic conditions of Palestinian refugees in Jordan. https://www.unrwa.org/resources/reports/insights-socio-economic-conditions-palestinian-refugees-jordan. Last Accessed 13 July 2017.