20 International and 32 local people from Carlow came together this week to ignite their passion for Community gardens and allotments in a 2-day international best practice sharing event.

Community gardens attract a wide cross-section of people across the entire socio-economic spectrum and include individuals who have little gardening experience as well as those who’ve been gardening for years, making them a great place to learn outside in a natural environment.

This week Cathaoirleach of Carlow County Council, Cllr. Fintan Phelan, and Chief Executive of Carlow County Council, Kathleen Holohan, welcomed delegates from 5 European countries to County Carlow to present, discuss, share training, and workshop ideas to help develop our community gardens and allotments across the county of Carlow.

This two-day session included peer review and learning, case study presentations and training and guidance from international expert groups which explored and shared best practice around governance, management and development of Community Garden spaces.

Cathaoirleach of Carlow County Council, Cllr. Fintan Phelan, said, “I was delighted to meet our partners from across Europe and support this new programme from Carlow County Council, which will help develop our community gardens around the County.” The Cathaoirleach continued to say, “Community Gardening is a healthy pastime that makes a valuable contribution to community development, positive social interaction, environmental awareness, and education. This sharing event was a great opportunity for Carlow communities to engage with our partners across Europe to network and share ideas around community gardening.”

The programme included training sessions and presentations from International best practice experts, presentations from each partner country to share ideas, workshops to examine current and new ideas, and a chance for the County Carlow Urbact Local Group (ULG) to meet our European partners in a face-to-face environment to help increase capacity within County Carlow while building our network and inspiring and motivating local community groups to engage in and develop the many community gardens in the County.

Speaking about the RU:URBAN Community Garden Project, Economic Development Officer with the Local Enterprise Office, Pierce Kavanagh, said, “this was a tremendous opportunity to work with our partners from Algeciras in Spain, Split in Croatia, Alexandroupolis in Greece, and our lead partner city of Rome, along with our partners throughout County Carlow, and a great way to share ideas, network, and develop the community gardens around the County of Carlow.”

The transnational exchange was part  of an EU Programme called RU:RBAN which is funded under the Urbact Programme. RU:RBAN’s Good Practice is the management model of Urban Gardens in Rome to be transferred to newcomer cities that are geographically, historically, and socio-culturally distant from each other, to ensure sharing of experiences to enhance the capacities of local governance. Transfer efforts will be ensured on the 3 well known and successful components that the GP is divided into: 1. Capacity building, 2. Inspiring and training people to manage urban gardens (Gardenisers), 3. Governance & Regulations.

Head of Economic Development & Enterprise with Carlow County Council’s Local Enterprise, Kieran Comerford, said, “this two-day programme brought our partners from the EU together with a diverse stakeholder group from around the County of Carlow to empower, train, and develop our communities and assist them with development of their community garden spaces.” Kieran continued to say, “this provided a great networking opportunity for all partners, ULG members, and locals to get together to discuss and exchange learning and ideas around community gardens and allotments.” Kieran concluded by saying, “Carlow was delighted to host this very important networking and training event, and I would like to thank our partner countries and all our local people and groups for their attendance and engagement at this sharing event, and thanks also to our hosting venues Visual, the Seven Oaks , Delta Centre, An Gairdin Beo, The Leighlinbridge Community and the Woodford Dolmen Hotel.”