During the past few months, the University section of the Argotti Botanic Gardens has once again been hosting training for refugees and asylum seekers.

The HORTES II project, short for Horticulture Training as a Means to Enhance Skills of Refugees and Asylum Seekers aimed to do exactly what its title says – it endeavoured to teach refugees and asylum seekers the basics of gardening. This project was funded by the European Union through the European Refugee Fund.

The course was spread over three levels, from beginners’ to advanced, each taking approximately ten weeks to complete. Refugees from all open centres were contacted, with the biggest number of participants coming from one of the open centres in Hal Far.

Refugees and asylum seekers staying at open centres were targeted for this initiative because at this stage they would be preparing to leave their centre and find a home to make a fresh start. The acquisition of new skills enhances their employability and helps them in their process of integration.

Dr Joseph Buhagiar, Director at the Argotti Gardens and leader of the project, together with his team at the Gardens, was actively involved in teaching students different aspects of plant biology, plant identification for both ornamental and wild species, plant water needs, plant nutrition and compost amongst others.

The crux was teaching the participants how to care for plants in a local garden environment, how to deal with different techniques of plant propagation, pruning, spotting disease and how to eradicate the problem.

The group participated in different practical sessions when they attended to different works in the garden to put theory to practice. The practical sessions were often on a one-to-one basis with Argotti gardening and technical staff.

Following the insight obtained last year, practical sessions were tailor-made for the needs of the participants and included, amongst other, handling garden equipment and machinery, use of scaffolding to reach trees for pruning, as well as watering and irrigation, planting of ornamentals for display, seed collection, cleaning and sowing.

The students were also given an opportunity to set up a small garden at their respective centres, to care for in between lessons. For this purpose, seeds, seedlings and ornamental plants were given, together with a set of tools. The course was formally concluded at the end of June 2014 which also marked the completion of the initiative.

In a final ceremony held at Argotti Botanic Gardens, the students received certificates of attendance for the levels they had attained. Representatives of the Argotti team and of the different open centres were present.

This initiative gave this group of refugees and asylum seekers the tools and skills to be more successful in finding a job in the gardening industry.

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