Kempten - Hortus Natura: This time the hard-working helpers of the younger age express themselves.
What they say astonishes and ponders co-organizer Ruth Haupt.
Click here for part 4 of the series.
In the “Hortus Natura - a garden for everyone” project on Linggener Straße in the Sankt Mang district, children and young people are always involved, and they are now an integral part of those taking part.
I wanted to know from them why the project is important to them and why they are part of it.
Your answers amazed me and also made me think.
They agree that nature is important to them and that we all have to do something for them.
Amazingly reflected
Everyone who lives in a house with a garden should be obliged to plant at least one tree, in the cities there should be much more green, areas in which flowers can grow for the animals. “I'm sitting here in front of eight to twelve year olds and not in front of a group of experts,” I think - and anyway, why do many houses in the city have to be bathed in such a dreary gray and look so box-shaped, why don't you have more courage and imagination Build? I listen up, what do you think houses should look like? I ask them, letting my gaze wander over the westward-facing settlement "Auf der Ludwigshöhe". "Yes, not so shoebox houses in straight rows, but in between a house that looks like an egg or one that has more curves than all the angular boxes here - just like Hundertwasser,says Jakob, eight years old.
As adults, Daniel, Jakob and Vincent want to work on how we can use inventions to get plastic waste out of the sea and perhaps use it again.
Lara would also prefer "a beach without rubbish instead of rubbish with a little beach".
All children think that rubble was buried on the site of the “Hortus Natura” is “bad”, and that the small stream has already been contaminated twice with paint residues and an indefinable liquid.
"We can learn so much from nature"
The children feel that the redesigns on the field are positive, not once have they thought that something will be taken away from them on the terrain that they have known from before and where they had often played before. On the contrary, now it looks more like a “fairy tale or fantasy world”. "We can learn so much from nature," says Abigail, she thinks it is nice that more flowers, and thus also animals, insects and birds, should come onto the square.
All children who are present at the interview are also part of the “outdoor adventure” group initiated by Manuela Härtl-Hiller and financially supported by the Müßiggengel Lions Club, which takes place on the grounds of the Hortus.
“I learned more about nature there and during the hands-on activities than at school,” says Daniel, “and I was allowed to do things that adults might consider too dangerous for us, such as sitting in the excavator and digging holes with it.
This, too, is Vincent's great wish to “sit in the excavator and operate it”.
He has already been noted for this when the excavator is used again in the 2nd week of September to dig holes for the fruit trees.
There is also self-confidence for free
Jakob tells of his experience of skillfully maneuvering a wheelbarrow loaded with stones across the site and unloading it safely; Not so easy in the beginning, now like a professional.
All children emphasize that they feel that they are in good hands in the community, that they feel that they are taken seriously and that at the end of their “work assignment” they see what they have done and that makes them proud. I would like to know what else they like about the project. "The catering", it comes spontaneously from Vincent and everyone nods. "The catering from Manu (initiator Härtl-Hiller, note by the author) is great and we think it's good that we sit in the living arbor at meals and talk together about what's next." Daniel's closing words also fit this very well good: "If we want to change the world, we have to stick together." And that from the mouth of a twelve year old!
When I say goodbye to the children, I leave with very mixed feelings.
On the one hand there is joy in me to meet young people from whose depths there is so much responsibility for nature and our earth, on the other hand I am sad that this legacy is being charged to them.
And yet there was no bitterness in all of them, but curiosity and openness to the future, and who knows - maybe thanks to your efforts your visions of colorful houses and gardens will become reality?
Ruth Haupt