My name is Emet. I was born in Turkey. In Turkey there is a strong sense of community. Generations of women garden together and support each other and age-old knowledge about the medicinal property of herbs is passed on to the following generations. My grandmother shared her knowledge with me and this was how my passion for gardening and herbal medicine was born.
I also followed a perma-culture course in Turkey. Perma-culture is more then organic gardening, it involves designing eco-housing, food-growing gardens and forestry in complete harmony with the natural world.
Eight years ago I decided to imigrate to Australia, and I was there when the 9/11 attack happened in New York. After that more terrorist attacks took place all over the world.
It was a terrible time for me . People were prejudiced against people from muslim countries and particularly from Middle East. Many women, including my self, felt isolated and lonely.
One day I had hung a peace poster in front of my house in Sydney “No War in Iraq”. One of my neighbours tore the poster off and ripped it to pieces, while swearing against all Middle Eastern people. This was a very upsetting experience.
The thought came to me that if that man had known me and understood my culture, he would not have done that. I realized that we need to create a strong community spirit, based on understanding each other, and sharing things together. That way politicians would not be able to manipulate community spirit for their own interest.
In these lonely times the connection with the soil always made me feel better. Two pictures of multi-cultural gardens in two cities, half a world away from each other, are engraved into my mind. I will tell you these stories:
Richmond, Melbourne I still see in my mind’s eye some elderly women with their headscarves, sharing freshly cooked pastries and cakes for an afternoon tea between the huge sunflowers and vine grapes under a simple bower.
The other near Central park in New York, Latin American and Jamaican families were celebrating Father’s Day. They made music, shared food and children played. We had been very generously invited to share their joy.
That is how the Vision of a multi-cultural community garden came into my mind.
Because I was still subjected to strong prejudice in Australia, I decided to move to New Zealand, where the people are more welcoming and open and settled in friendly city Wellington.
When I talked to other women about my Vision, they encouraged me to pursue my dream. In my mind I called my Vision “Innermost Gardens” as an expression of the deepest feelings of women and their connection to the earth.
I’ve promoted the project to the Wellington City council, refugee and migrant organisations and local communities for 6 months. I organised the first informative gathering for women to learn about Innermost Gardens in the Aro Street Community Centre in June 2006. Twenty women from a wide ethnic variety came, and we had a big circle to discuss the idea and the steps to be taken. We also shared international food and told our stories.
Since that day Innermost Garden is not only my Vision anymore. We are now with a wonderful bunch of women from all over the world: Africa, Australia, Brazil, China, Germany, Japan, both Maori Pakeha from New Zealand, Solomon Islands and more… We are now an Incorporated Society.
We already have the multi-cultural aspect, friendship and support. And we have applied to the Wellington City Council for the lease for a wonderful piece of land which also has a club house. It is a wonderful spot, and we hope that our application will be successful so that we will be able to put the roots down soon.
My Vision is slowly but surely coming true!
Fur the future, we have a vision to have an Innermost Garden in every suburb in Wellington. We hope to be joined by many more women.
Emet Alpay-Degirmenci
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