The Flowery Desert
Project: Promoting Access to Rights and Reintegration of Detainees-FARD
From the Laudato Si' action platform, Sister Nilima MINJ, the women's prison coordinator, created a beautiful space for the vegetable garden, which is a place for meetings and discussions with the women detained in the Nouakchott prison.
I then understood that the surrounding greenery and the process of growing vegetables with the women in the detention center were a great expression of life spoken out loud with nature.
Creating gardens is an act of atonement that has created a space for sharing, listening, relaxing, and exchanging ideas, opinions, and learning great lessons to forget the stress and pain of being separated from the world, which has brought us closer to the vision of integral ecology of Laudato Si'.
This year, we have been able to cultivate a vegetable garden near the women's prison, and we have been able to grow many fresh vegetables.
The vegetables have been used in the prison for cooking, where the women have been sensitized to vegetable cultivation and the consumption of holistic meals. Then, the women learned to prepare tomato jams and consume them in different forms, which was very appreciated and motivated the women.
The project has improved the local biodiversity with native plants and pollinator gardens to promote integral ecology.