Rooftop Gardens Uplift Poor Refugee Camps
An initiative to grow rooftop gardens in overcrowded, crammed camps is providing some economic relief for Palestinian refugees, Dalia Hatuqa reports from the West Bank.
Rows of nondescript houses line the maze that is Dheisheh, a refugee camp of 13,500 Palestinians living in cramped dwellings. Space in this Bethlehem-area camp is a luxury as families are forced to build on top of one another, and gardens or parks are practically unheard of.
A higher cost of living — skyrocketing prices of goods and fuel — have left many struggling, including Hajar Hamdan, a 60-year-old woman living with her elderly mother, her sister and her sister’s two children. But in the past few months, a sliver of hope had arisen, courtesy of an idea that dates back to ancient Mesopotamia.
“It was an idea that I could never have thought of,” said Hamdan, whose family is one of 16 benefiting from a local program that equips them with a rooftop garden. “So far, I have saved a little by growing green beans, cucumber, peppers, spinach and zucchini.”
The idea of rooftop gardening started with Karama, a camp-based non-governmental organization that focuses on women and youth. So far, 15 homes in Dheisheh and one in the nearby Aida camp have been fitted with these gardens — simple fixtures made out of rows of open pipes filled with soil, fitted with an irrigation system and covered by a large net to provide some shade to the plants.
