Gardening outreach activities for World Children’s Day
Aveen Ibrahem, our operations manager in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, together with our gardening team, have been busy doing gardening outreach activities with some of the local schools.
As a way to mark the UN’s World Children’s Day, we visited five schools in Domiz 1 camp and Gawillan camp in November. World Children’s Day is celebrated on 20 November each year to promote children’s welfare, their rights, and awareness among children worldwide. This year’s theme was ‘inclusion for every child’.
During each school visit, we talked about the benefits of gardening and demonstrated how to nurture a seed into a plant. We also shared our fun Mr & Mrs Cresshead gardening activity, created in collaboration with the Royal Horticultural Society. Hundreds of activity sheets and seed packets were gifted to the children of many different age groups.
Aveen says:
Gardening is an important aspect of our culture, where most children are encouraged to help out in the garden from a young age, and gardening knowledge and tips are passed down from one generation to the next.
But it’s important that we bring gardening into the local schools and share the many benefits that gardening brings, in a fun and engaging way, to reach as many children as possible. Not forgetting of course that we want to spread the message about our work, to encourage our young gardeners to get growing at home and enter our competitions. Our budding gardeners of the future.
Gardening outreach in Domiz 1 camp – Kobani School and Giyan School
Gardening outreach in Gawillan camp – Kwilan School, Afrin School and Jakar Khoen School
Our thanks go to Othman and Laila, our garden coordinators in Gawillan camp, for sharing their gardening ‘know how’ with the children.
We plan to visit more schools across camps in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq in the coming weeks.
About the schools in refugee and IDP camps
Each refugee and IDP (internally displaced people) camp in the Kurdistan Region tends to have a least one school, which all children are encouraged to attend. Education, including post-16 education, is provided free of charge and children go to school in either the morning or the afternoon. Find out more about daily life in Domiz 1 camp, the home of our headquarters in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq.
Make your own Mr & Mrs Cressheads at home
We’re happy to share our Mr & Mrs Cresshead family gardening activity with you so that you can have fun at home – it’s available in English, Arabic, Farsi and Ukrainian (with French coming soon!). Download for free, alongside other activities in our ‘Lenny Lemon’ collection, from our resources area.
Aveen Ibrahem is Operations Manager at Lemon Tree Trust, overseeing our community gardening and cooking programmes across the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. Her work supports activities in Azadî Community Garden in Domiz 1 camp, as well as outreach and coordination across the nine camps where Lemon Tree Trust currently operates. Having lived in Domiz 1 … Continued
Inside the polytunnels at the Hêvî Community Garden in Gawilan refugee camp, Garden Manager Othman Qewas carefully selects fruit trees and flowering plants grown from seed. Joined by Hamid Abdullah, Lemon Tree Trust’s Horticulture and Landscape Consultant, the plants are loaded into the car before setting off to visit families across the camp. As part of our ongoing children’s outreach programme in Gawilan camp, … Continued
Bringing together residents to celebrate the home gardens they have grown, tended and transformed over the past year, Lemon Tree Trust’s 2026 Annual Garden Competitions have taken place across nine refugee and IDP (internally displaced people) camps in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. This year’s competitions introduced a greater emphasis on welcoming new participants alongside … Continued