A garden brings color and hope to a refugee camp in Iraq. The Lemon Tree Trust project.

LEMON TREE TRUST

Un garden lush and full of colors is certainly not the first thing we think of when we close our eyes and imagine the refugee camps in Syria and IraqThe images that form before our eyes are the black and white ones of shacks or tents at the limits of survival, and we often forget that beauty is an aspiration and a desire, especially for those who have lost everything.

The story of tells us this Amal Ali Abdo, forty years old, a life enclosed in a stalemate in the refugee camp of Domizin Iraq, a handful of kilometers from the border with the Syria, who, in an interview with Financial Times to journalist Jonny Bruce, tells of the Damascus rose which she took with her when she fled. And which she succeeded with a common to make it bloom again by transplanting it in front of his tent. Or the story of Aveen Ibrahim, two nephews murdered in a mass execution in front of the Damascus Mosque at the hands of Daesh, a husband and two children. She reached Domiz on a very cold winter day in 2012: the only refreshment for her was start again from the earthand at our flowers, from plant.

«It's the only way I can feel at peace, at home, safe», he tells the Financial Times.

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REFUGEE GARDEN PROJECT

If we could listen to the voices of the inhabitants of the camp Domiz they would tell us that what they have more of nostalgia and the vegetation lush, the trees and the flowers of a beautiful and green land that was the Syria before it became a land of conflict and raids.

In a context of humanitarian emergency one hardly thinks about the importance of flowers and plants for quality of human life, but luckily there are those who did it. Like Stephanie Hunt, creative and executive director of Lemon Tree Trust, an organization that has been working in the refugee camps, villages and encampments in Syria, Iraq, Sudan and Uganda to create gardens and promote agriculture e sustainable floriculture.

In the field of Domiz, Furthermore, Lemon Tree Trust is committed to promoting projects on the reuse and non-waste of water resources, in a condition where the lack of water even just to drink is dramatic. Let alone for irrigate and water the small vegetable gardens and of gardens of the field.More generally, the goal of Lemon Tree Trust It is a reflection on crops be sustainable anchored to the resources of each territory.

CHELSEA FLOWER SHOW

That's why the flower beds blooming of Domiz, the stories of Amal and Ibrahim but also that of Khalid, who loves to take care of shrubs herbs and a small vegetable garden, were the inspiration for a garden which was exhibited in May at Chelsea Flower Show,annual fair of the gardening and floriculture. The project combines theethical and poetic imprint of a story of hope with all the innovations of the exterior design and design of gardens and green spaces. Between Damascus roses, Syrian oregano and other aromatic plants, is the green tribute of Lemon Tree Trust to the lives that resist in the refugee camp of DomizBecause hope is like a plant, it blooms.

(Featured image and photos in the text taken from the Facebook page of Lemon Tree Trust)

STORIES OF HOPE AND SOLIDARITY

• Solidarity Hospitality, the call for proposals seeking residents to improve Milan's neighborhoods. With an eye on solidarity.

• Slurp, the solidarity project that is committed to helping students experiencing serious financial hardship.

• Solidarity shops, where everything can be purchased without money. And they help poor consumers.

• In Imola, the Non Sprechi solidarity emporium: shopping is based on points, and there's no such thing as money.

• Walking bus in Caserta, Francis, a refugee fleeing war in Africa, is accompanying the students.