Working in partnership with Lush and Mercy Hands we are employing refugees in Domiz Camp, Iraq to help design and fabricate emergency growing kits for crisis-affected areas in Iraq and Syria

The concept of the Crisis Response Garden kits is simple: deliver all the tools and seeds required to start growing food to help newly arrived refugee families begin food gardening as soon as possible in newly established camps or to residents in crisis affected urban areas. The kits range from a single household garden, to a large community garden including a wheelbarrow and then a large crate for a communal garden.

Our livelihood strategy involved helping to set up a workers cooperative in Domiz Camp, Iraq, where refugees would help design and construct 1,200 kits. Lemon Tree Trust then purchases these kits from refugees helping to develop a business strategy beyond charitable funding. Each kit has an image of hope for the refugee in Syria, hand embroidered onto the bags by a group of skilled women in Domiz. Initial funding has been provided by Lush, with the collection and distribution in Mosul, Iraq and Amude, Syria being facilitated by Mercy Hands, a partner NGO. We are working with them to pilot and evaluate the use of these kits and to determine which households and community groups want to grow.

We aim that this project also becomes a self-contained business for families in Domiz Camp, who are able to build on the initial funding by obtaining further orders from other NGOs and humanitarian organisations.

 

 

 

You did it! 🥳 Thanks to your generous donations, our Community Garden Appeal raised £3,662 GBP ($4,530 USD). Plus, every donation has been matched by one of our most generous supporters, meaning the appeal raised an incredible £7,324 GDP ($9,060 USD). Thank you so much. And we loved receiving your messages of support throughout our … Continued

Lemon Tree Trust (LTT) has awarded 162 winning gardens in its annual garden competitions this year – 63 more prizes than last year.    Competitions took place in nine refugee and IDP (internally displaced people) camps across the Kurdistan Region of Iraq again this year with 18 gardens from each camp being awarded prizes.  To take … Continued

Today, on UN World Refugee Day, we have launched a special appeal, where we are asking our supporters to help us bring hope, connection and belonging to people displaced by war in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. There are currently over 280,000 refugees and asylum seekers in the Kurdistan Region, and over 1 million Iraqis … Continued