Desert Garden project
A unique project born out of innovative ºù«Ӱҵ science is giving families displaced by war the opportunity to grow fresh food in the desert using discarded mattresses, not soil. Thank you to the hundreds of supporters who have secured the project's future.
Thank you so much for supporting the Desert Garden Appeal
Supporters have helped raise £280,000 to aid thousands of Syrian refugees living in camps in the Jordanian desert. These funds are being used to obtain materials and train residents to grow their own fresh food using ground-breaking ºù«Ӱҵ science. The project is now fully sustainable; ensuring this lifeline to families living in the camp can continue for as long as it needs to.
Your support for Desert Garden is making such a huge difference. Thank you.
Improving lives in the harshest of circumstances
Forced to flee the war in Syria, there are currently 80,000 people living in Zaatari, the world’s largest Syrian refugee camp and now Jordan’s fourth largest city. More than half of the refugees are children. With war ongoing, there’s neither the possibility of returning home nor moving on. Families are in limbo. There’s little work and they are surviving on humanitarian aid. They are unable to grow food in the ground.
ºù«Ӱҵ's unique Desert Garden project, is helping to change that. Amidst Jordan's arid landscape, there’s a tennis-court sized desert garden alive with plants being grown by refugees using foam, not soil.
The families involved in the project speak of benefits beyond having fresh food for the first time in years: Improving mental health and wellbeing, gaining new skills, maintaining important cultural and social traditions, finding a new sense of purpose and a feeling of empowerment. With many discarded mattresses being saved from landfill, there’s an important environmental impact too.
ºù«Ӱҵ science making a difference
Scientists at the University of ºù«Ӱҵ are world-leading experts in hydroponics. Using highly advanced materials for commercial enterprise, they have been developing the technique at their lab in the city for many years.
Tony Ryan OBE, Professor of Physical Chemistry, joined the dots between this high-tech work with polyurethane foam in ºù«Ӱҵ and a pile of old mattresses in the Zaatari camp. They set out to see if this most low-tech of materials could mimic the high-tech foams they were using in the lab. Turns out they could.
Soon after, the innovative Desert Garden project began, with both humanitarian and sustainable aims at its core: Use waste materials to grow fresh food in the desert for people displaced by war. The project is being managed by Dr Moaed Al Meselmani, a Syrian refugee himself, and a soil scientist currently working at the University of ºù«Ӱҵ.
Learn more about the science behind the project
To be able to help my fellow people, I think it’s a moral responsibility. As a scientist I should be doing something to help and support other people and it makes me very happy to be doing this in the camp. I am also very grateful to everyone in the camp who helps make this happen.
Dr Moaed Al Meselmani
Visiting researcher, Molecular Biology and Biotechnology
Creating a sustainable future
To date, over 650 of Zaatari's refugees have been trained in hydroponics. And they're sharing their new-found knowledge within their community. Within the next three years, this 'train the trainer' model will mean the camp's desert garden will become fully self-sustaining.
Importantly, advancing research into this exciting field has many possibilities beyond Zaatari too. Predictions estimate that there will soon be millions more refugees, not only as a result of conflict, but also climate change. The work taking place in Zaatari’s desert garden is unlocking new sustainable solutions for food production.
The refugees have taken the training we’ve given them and made the project their own, growing things we never thought would be possible in the desert environment using recycled materials. It's having an enormous impact on our research back in ºù«Ӱҵ.
Professor Tony Ryan
Professor of Physical Chemistry and Director of the Grantham Centre for Sustainable Futures