REACT and the municipality of Carthage have not failed to participate again in the stopover environmental film festival: Envirofest on the corniche of the city of La Marsa last June 25 and 26.

In addition to the open air screening of a selection of films, an eco-responsible market was organized.  Several actors in the environmental cause, craftsmen, artists, NGOs and associations have held stands, conducted workshops and activities to raise awareness and awaken children to environmental causes. Carthage and REACT presented the ECSs of the EdiCitNet network to those who participated in the call for projects EdiCitNet-Carthage to take part in this event.

Two ECSs have responded with their presence, Le jardin d’Amilcar and Carthage Zahret Lebled. During these two days these ECSs presented their concepts, services and activities. They also exhibited and/or sold their edible products. However, the most important thing for these initiatives was to have taken advantage of this event to get visibility and to be known by a public of Carthage residents. It was possible for them to exchange with the inhabitants, to make them aware of the importance of urban agriculture from a social, well-being and health point of view.

The two founders of the two ECSs Samy Boujemaa and Issam Ben Chaben explained to the public the reasons for their involvement in the EdiCitNet network, the objectives and the perspectives of their ECSs. They also motivated the visitors to get involved in urban agriculture as consumers and then as actors by creating their own initiatives.

Keywords : Envirofest – urban agriculture – ECS – EdiCitNet – REACT – Carthage

     On the sidelines of the 4th edition of the film festival on the environment Envirofest, taking place from 11 to 16 June 2021, was held the environmental village. This village was the place of exhibition of artists, craftsmen in ecoresponsible products and popularizations of activities of actors impacting the environment in Tunisia.

REACT held a stand to present the various projects in which the association is involved. Among which is EdiCitNet. A poster, with the objectives of the project, was exposed as well as the projection of the video clip, about EdiCitNet, realized in November 2020. The originality during this edition was to carry out an action, initiated by REACT in collaboration with ASEST (The Deaf Sports and Educational Academy of Tunis) ASEST (L’Académie Sportive et Educative des Sourds de Tunis), for the inclusion of the deaf and hard of hearing to environmental education.

Thus, groups of deaf and hard-of-hearing children and adults were able to benefit from sign language translation at most of the stands in the environmental village and especially at the REACT stand. The translators explained the objectives of EdiCitNet to this audience in sign language, based on the poster and the video clip, and helped REACT members to animate and make accessible the educational games planned for them. Where, they were led to recognize blindfolded, an array of vegetable and edible plants.

These games were very successful with the deaf and hard of hearing groups because of their playful and enriching aspect. They were then motivated to participate in the second workshop: creation of cards with dried edible plants. Through its participation in events, REACT innovates and integrates playful tools to disseminate the concepts of urban agriculture and edible city.

Key words : Envirofest – urban agriculture – inclusion of the deaf and hard of hearing – environmental
education – EdiCitNet- REACT – Carthage.

In September, project partner University of Brighton (UoB) started their design research and consultancy with follower city Sant Feliu de Llobregat. Aim of the work is to support the local council in its efforts to integrate ECSs and productive urban landscapes into the spatial and organisational fabric and the everyday life of the city.

The collaboration with the local council, local agroecological cooperative Arran de Terra and Barcelonabased research institute ICRA, all EdiCitNet project partners, is part of the work package 4 food masterplanning overseen by BOKU University Vienna. Within the next year, we aim to co-develop with the local community a series of maps as a tool to identify strategies for urban food planning as well as a method to capture, systematise and visualise those strategies.

Supported by the local city team, we have learned that Sant Feliu de Llobregat and its municipal area are located on the left bank of the Llobregat river valley, where it coincides with the Baix Llobregat Agricultural Park, shared by 14 municipalities. It also borders the Collserola Natural Park, which is an area of natural interest, shared by nine municipalities. Both the Llobregat Agricultural Park and Collserola have significant agricultural activity. This is of great interest as strong, multiple linkages between the urban and rural are a widely recognised advantage when (re)defining the role of food within urban development. At the same time, there exists an increasing number of inner-urban food system and food policy activities in Sant Feliu de Llobregat that we aim to map as part of the 3-stage food opportunity mapping process.

On September 22, from 14.00 to 16.30 h, the local working group “Visibility and Values” (of ECS) from Rotterdam and Wageningen University held an exploratory business model workshop at with five participants from five different ECS in Rotterdam: Groene Connectie, Cooperatie Ondergrond, Stadskwekerij de Kas, De Stad Uit, and Wijkbedrijf (Spoortuin). At the case example of Stadskwekerij de Kas, participants tested and developed a prototype of a Business Model Diamond to make the values visible that stakeholders see in this ECS. The model will be further developed based on the feedback from participants.

The workshop was held to develop D6.6, the Business Model Analyses and Typology of Edible City Solutions. It was facilitated by Alice Bischof (Wageningen University – Business Management & Organization) together with Nienke Bouwhuis (Groene Connectie, a network of ECS in Rotterdam) and Paul de Graaf (Cooperatie Ondergrond, ECS in Rotterdam / Wageningen University – Rural Sociology).

Project partner University of Brighton (UoB) began their consultancy and design research with the Tunisian City of Carthage in a first (online) co-design meeting. This Spring, UoB have joined the Carthaginian city team – consisting of local council representatives, research institutes and interested citizens – to co-develop with the local community a series of maps as a tool to identify strategies for urban food planning as well as a method to capture, systematise and visualise those strategies.

UoBs work will build on long-running investigations by members of the city team into the characteristics of their local food system that were brought together recently by work package 4 leads BOKU University Vienna.

Representatives of the city team informed us that Carthage, known to many for its rich and multi-layered history, ‘… is an integral part of a large metropolis, Greater Tunis, which is endowed with a development plan known as the ‘Grand Tunis Development Master Plan (SDAGT)’… dating from 2005… In 2018, a study was commissioned by the Urban Agency of Greater Tunis for the revision of this plan. The white paper published in this context provides for a programme to promote urban and peri-urban agriculture in Greater Tunis by 2040…’ This is of great interest to us, especially as the city team further informs that it goes – or should go – hand in hand with Carthage’s Urban Development Plan, dating from 2006, which is currently under review. It plans ‘to maintain the existing green areas with the use of some land for agriculture. A transition in an edible way is also envisaged’.

The UoB will conduct its co-design work with the Carthage city team as part of BOKU’s transition pathway method by visualising Carthage’s unique characteristics in a map that makes the city comparable to other cities within the EdiCitNet project. We will then branch out into developing food-focused opportunity maps that will eventually inform the city’s strategic masterplanning.

On August 21st, Principal Investigator of the EdiCitNet project, Dr. Ina Säumel, lead an interactive workshop on everyday life and sustainability – with a focus on Edible City Solutions – as part of a series of four workshops held at the first ever “Zukunftsforum” event organized by the Humboldt University and the Joachim Herz Foundation.

In a day filled with workshops and barcamps, more than a hundred participants worked together to envision the resilient, livable and healthy cities and societies of the future. At the end of the event, all of the ideas were collected and discussed in a final presentation, and all of the participants were invited to visit the Humboldt Labor’s “After Nature” exhibition at the newly opened Humboldt Forum.

On the same day, other members of the EdiCitNet team spent the afternoon meeting the public at a networking event for people to volunteer with sustainable initiatives in Berlin. Organized by a recently founded association, Climate Action Berlin, the event, which took place at the backyard of Haus der Statistik in Berlin’s Alexanderplatz, featured numerous associations working towards sustainability and climate justice, including the initiative 100% Tempelhofer Feld and Berlin’s first cooperative supermarket, SuperCoop.

As well as  introducing the project to a large number of people and expanding the reach of the EdiCitNet project, the team also had the chance to promote volunteering opportunities at the two Living Lab sites organised by the Prinzessinengarten Kollektiv, an urban gardening collective and key partner in the EdiCitNet project.