Resiliency Gardens for Ukrainian Refugees and IDPs

We are excited to share the launch of a new school garden program at SzkoUA, the Polish-Ukrainian School in Warsaw. Through a partnership with Resiliency Gardens, this initiative is creating opportunities for Ukrainian refugee students to reconnect with food growing, nature, and hands-on learning.

The program began with a workshop titled "Co-designing a School Garden," which brought together 24 Ukrainian refugee students, their teacher, and volunteer horticulture students from the Warsaw University of Life Sciences (SGGW). During the workshop, participants explored the key factors that influence successful gardening, including sunlight, soil, and moisture. Students learned an important lesson that every gardener eventually discovers: a good garden begins by listening to the land.

When the students discovered that their original plans for tomatoes, carrots, cucumbers, beets, and peppers would need to be adjusted because of too much shade, they did what good problem-solvers do: they redesigned. The garden will now focus on herbs, leafy greens, wild strawberries, nasturtiums, and even a few experiments with pumpkins and zucchini. The tomatoes the children planted earlier will continue growing on sunny classroom windowsills.

This project is especially meaningful because all of the participating children are refugees from Ukraine. In Ukraine, gardening and growing food are a natural part of life for many families. In Warsaw, those opportunities are much harder to access. Through this garden, students will reconnect with the experience of growing food, observing nature, working together, and taking pride in creating something beautiful and useful.

The garden will also become a living classroom for lessons in biology, ecology, nutrition, composting, waste reduction, and sustainability. And, of course, there will be the simple joy of eating strawberries directly from the plants and using fresh mint and herbs grown by the students themselves.

We are grateful to the Ukrainian House Foundation, SzkoUA, the volunteer students from SGGW, and all those helping bring this project to life. Together, we are planting more than seeds—we are cultivating resilience, belonging, and hope for the future.

Dear Friend,

Thank you for your continued support of our partner projects in Ukraine and Poland. We’re excited to share an update on a project we’re supporting in partnership with the Bukovinian Agency for Regional Development (BARD) in Chortkiv, Ukraine. This has been a two year project that first built an urban garden and amphitheatre in the public library yard and then used the space to host a permaculture course. This initiative is helping strengthen community connections while enhancing environmental stewardship through hands-on involvement.

Urban Garden at the Public Library

The public library in the small town of Chortkiv, in western Ukraine, has transformed into a space for people, not just books. This effort transformed the library's outdoor space into a beautiful urban garden for the community to enjoy. It now hosts a variety of cultural and social activities for community members, creating a vibrant and lively place.  

While creating the garden space, care was taken to maximize community involvement, from decision-making to hands-on implementation. By leveraging local knowledge and the unique skills of community members, this transformation is a truly collective effort. The community participated in design sessions and participatory workshops to build seating platforms and benches, bases and shelves for planters, garbage bins, and other essential elements for the yard. More than 20 people took part, including enthusiastic schoolchildren, neighbors, local carpenters, a welder, and others who simply wanted to contribute to the creation of a shared public space.

Once the space was ready, additional community members aged 1.5 to 63 years old, came together to plant herbs, berry bushes, and other decorative plants in front of the pavilion. To ensure the garden would be diverse and self-sustaining, a professional permaculture designer hwlpws with the layout and selection of plants. The owner of a local plant nursery also provided professional guidance for the project and provided locally grown seedlings at a discounted price. 

Permaculture Education in Action

Utilizing this beautiful library gathering space further, a Permaculture Design Course was launched for the community. Permaculture is an approach to create sustainable systems for agriculture that works in harmony with natural processes. Four blocks were included in this course: 

• 2-day theoretical interactive learning with permaculture designers about basic principles of permaculture.
• 2-day design workshop focusing on the group design project, including analysis of the yard and adjusting public areas, identifying challenges and designing solutions for further sustainable development of the yard and its urban garden.
• 2-day public workshop on collective implementation of the designed solutions, planting under the guidance permaculture designers 
• 2-day study-visit to existing permaculture centers to see and experience the range of the sustainable solutions for gardening and get inspired by real examples in Ukraine.

Growing Knowledge, Community, and Hope

By the end of the course, participants had not only gained technical skills, but also formed a supportive, cross-generational learning community united by care for people and nature. 

Looking ahead, the community plans to continue developing the yard as a green, educational hub and to share their experience with others, proving that even small urban spaces can become powerful examples of connection and cooperation.

Thank you for standing with our partners in Ukraine. Your support helps nurture knowledge, connection, and sustainable solutions, planting seeds that will continue to grow for years to come.

With gratitude,
Robyn Love
Seed Programs International