Marawi IDPs and host communities break barriers through urban gardening

BUTUAN City, March 2019 – In this highly urbanized city in Northeastern Mindanao, an estimated 130 Muslim families that fled the conflict in Marawi City, about a 6.5-hour drive away, still live with their host families and predominantly Christian host communities in small houses mainly in barangays Ong Yiu and Limaha, with limited income opportunities and social interactions, and barriers posed by their cultural and religious differences.

Tenuous peace in Marawi City prevents the internally displaced persons (IDPs) from returning.

To improve their living conditions, the displaced and host families are learning a new skill: urban gardening.

Urban gardening is the growing of plants in small plots in cities, such as in containers in vertical gardens. Besides enabling people to feed themselves and earn from their surplus harvests, urban gardening allows the displaced and host families to work together productively, which holds much promise in bridging their cultural differences.

In January this year, 130 IDPs and representatives of host families completed the 15-day urban gardening training organized under the Work with SMILES project of the SMILES Foundation, in cooperation with the National Commission on Muslim Filipinos, the local government units (LGUs) of barangays Ong Yiu and Limaha, and IDP representatives.

The project is supported by the program Strengthening Capacities on Conflict-induced Forced Displacement in Mindanao – a partnership of the Philippine government, led by the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process (OPAPP), and the German government, through the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH.

The eight-month Work with SMILES project fosters trust and social cohesion among and between IDPs and their host families and communities in Butuan City through skills training for shared livelihood activities. When the project ends this June, up to 540 individuals from 90 displaced and host families are expected to have one of these income-generating skills: urban gardening, cellphone repair, carpentry, tailoring, and food processing.

Barangay Ong Yiu chairman Welfredo Ejos is pleased with the results of the training on urban gardening. ”We have always wanted to mobilize the community to engage in vertical gardening, but our technical know-how was limited,” he said. “Now, this vision has come to life. The urban community now beams with green life hanging on their walls and fences, using materials that are just around them.”

Aside from the vertical home gardens, 10 vulnerable households in Barangay Limaha came together and established a communal vegetable garden on what used to be a garbage dumpsite. Taking turns in managing the garden, they have already harvested green leafy vegetables. Another group of households has followed their lead.

The trained households, with the LGUs and the other project proponents, are now sharing their knowledge on urban gardening with other IDPs, host families, LGUs, and civic groups. Some of the trained families are even generously sharing the gardening inputs provided by the project, like seeds, organic fertilizers, and organic sprays for pest control. But it’s not just gardens that are sprouting and growing in these communities – it’s also the confidence of, and the cooperation between, the displaced and host communities.

“I was so happy and felt privileged to be part of the project,” said Dina Batuampar, an IDP. “Being new in this place, my family and I knew only a few people. With my active involvement in urban gardening, from the orientation to making organic fertilizers and bio pesticides, I have met a lot of friends, fellow IDPs, and those from the host communities, Muslims and Christians alike. This is my first time to do gardening all my life, and it gave me not just knowledge but also greater happiness and something to look forward to. I was surprised that through simple gardening, I don’t have much time anymore to remember the terrors of war. I am preoccupied with my plants and really feel the joy of handpicking my first harvest.”