Moira's Garden

Global Gardens of Peace started life as a thought provoking idea from Moira Kelly AO, International Humanitarian, during a medical rescue mission to Gaza in February 2004.

Moira spent quite some time talking and listening to the stories of the children and their parents. She was visibly affected by the stories of war, atrocities and death; a daily event in their lives. In the midst of this bleak picture, the children still being children, could be seen on the war torn streets playing with rubble from bombed buildings with make shift toys made from broken bits of metal and other rubbish.

It was during this visit that Moira visited the Australian and English War Memorial. Behind a stone wall, upon entering, she discovered a lush and beautiful green environment, well-kept grass and palm trees. This struck a chord with her, she could not imagine how such a peaceful place could exist behind this wall whilst on the other side was sad and desolate place.

While on the visit Moira learnt that the war memorial garden was maintained from money paid by the Australia, New Zealand and English governments. Coming away from the garden Moira was struck by the fact that if we can build and maintain a garden for the dead surely we can build a garden for the living. She left vowing that she would return with the Australian people to build a Garden of Hope for Gaza.

In July 2007, Moira received a visit from a Union of Health representative who was bringing a sick child for treatment. He also brought with him a letter entitled ‘Moira's Garden’; his first words were “we have your land”. To her amazement, she was advised that land had been put aside for a creation of a children's garden.

The letter also stated that they understood the importance of creating an environment that would be conducive to rehabilitating the children and their families after the years of war that they had suffered from.

Not content to stop at just one garden, Moira decided that if we could overcome all the challenges of building a garden in the Gaza Strip then why not in other parts of the world where communities have suffered phenomenal hardship through war and conflict?

And so, the Global Gardens of Peace was born. The Gaza project, Moira's Garden, is hoped to be the first of many beautiful child-centric gardens to be built around the world that will bring a place of tranquillity and joy to children and families who have suffered unimaginable horrors and where children can simply be children.

A design team, comprising Andrew Laidlaw from RBGM, Wendy Clarke from Dirtscape Dreaming, David Wong from DW design and Peter Symes from RBGM developed a design concept that was based around the values and stories of Palestinian families. Three separate conference groups where set up, two in Gaza strip and one in Melbourne. Each group comprised men, women and children who all spoke of their dreams and wishes for the garden. The design draws on the cultural history and sense of place that many Palestinian people living in Gaza have been cut off from for many years.

Peter and Andrew travelled to Gaza in 2013 and again in 2014 and carried out a full site analysis and followed up with a range of professional organisations that are supportive of the Garden Plan. This included two visits to the Jerusalem Botanic gardens and a visit to the Tel Aviv Botanic gardens.

Both institutions where supportive of the concept and agreed to help with plant selection and plant sourcing. Peter and Andrew also met with a range of Palestinian organisations, including the Union of Agriculture, the local municipality and a number of the local universities.

Issues around plant selection, water, energy and soil amelioration are paramount to the success of the garden.

The Gaza Peace garden will be a community environment that is green, clean and beautiful where children can come and simply enjoy being children. Where families can play, picnic and enjoy being together. The gardens will also be designed to create opportunity for local employment and education to ensure ongoing maintenance is fully considered from the beginning.

You enter the garden through two massive cut stones situated at the edge of a flower garden, you then proceed into the main meeting place of the garden. A series of tented structures will provide visitor facilities including toilets, library and education centre and a number of picnic shelters with cooking facilities. A maze garden inspired by the Islamic language links the meeting place to the Oasis garden.

The maze garden will comprise both plant and built form. The main centre piece of the garden and embedded in the history of gardens is the oasis garden. Shade from thickets of palms and the abundance of water will make this a place of joy. Surrounding the oasis will be a series of climbing rock walls that will protect the oasis from strong winds and help connect the visitors to the ancient hills of Palestine. Local stone and indigenous plants will feature throughout the entire garden.

Leaving the oasis you move into a range of lawn spaces designed for small family gatherings, the raised lawn arrangements resemble an old Palestine village with laneways, a city square/performance area and shade shelters. There will be a range of unique play equipment situated in and around the village.

There will be a community vegetable garden for locals to grow vegetables and keep a small numbers of livestock; the entire vegetable garden will be surrounded by orchards. The gardens will be a place where children and families can have time to play and delight in the natural world, where they will be surrounded by plants and free to immerse themselves in their imaginary worlds.

The gardens will focus on nature based experiences including water play, forest thickets, plant tunnels, sand play, rock mazes and water rills. It is though these early experiences in childhood where our strongest links to nature are made, our sense of adventure is created and our ability to interact and negotiate with others is established. All of which are essential in shaping a healthy adult life.

All children deserve free time to play in safe outdoor spaces. Play is the work of children and through this creative process children connect to the natural world around them. These experiences are often essential in shaping a healthy adult life. Our strongest links to nature are created in childhood when we spend free time playing in safe outdoor spaces. In Gaza children are deprived of this basic right.

>A series of more traditional play structures will provide a range of challenges for the young up to the adolescent that will provide opportunities for physical exertion and social interaction and most importantly, opportunities to have fun. Play equipment will include rope courses, giant slides, flying fox and a tree house among other things.

Finally for these gardens to be successful they must also provide facilities for a broad cross section of the community including the elderly, youth and the parents and carers of the children and people with disabilities. These facilities will include all ability access, library facilities, a range of meeting places and seating areas, education facilities and walking trails.

Find out more about the project, how to donate, volunteer or become a friend at: http://www.globalgardensofpeace.org/

Global Gardens of Peace is an Australian charity founded by Moira Kelly in 2013. The aim of Global Gardens of Peace is to plan, design and deliver natural play spaces to communities around the world that have suffered significant hardship through war or natural disaster.