DREFF completes Community Peace Garden Activity

Santo Domingo, 9/9/2011

As part of its many activities, the Dominican Republic Environmental Film Festival (DREFF) was pleased to host a special workshop creating a Community Peace Garden. This particular workshop took place on Friday September 9 from 7:00 a.m.-9:00 am at the Colegio Nuestra Señora de la Altagracia offering a place of creativity, education, relaxation, diversity, exercise and health to their students.

Students joined instructor and Peace Gardener Roseann Lord from non-profit organization, Food for Peace for an insight into making their own Peace Garden -- an Earth-friendly method for producing sustainable, high-yield and low cost crops in very small spaces of land. In actual fact, one can grow vegetables, herbs and flowers together in a Peace Garden making them an innovative idea for urban neighborhoods where available land for community gardening is very limited or very expensive. Peace Gardens are ideal for schools, youth groups, senior citizen communities, churches, and health care facilities, producing large amounts of nutritional crops at a very low cost.

The workshop followed some simple instructions on how to build a grid, prepare the soil, and select the appropriate combination of plants for the garden. Once the workshop was completed, "peace gardeners" headed to FUNGLODE for a 10:00 AM screening of the documentary film Play Again, followed by a panel discussion with producer Meg Merrill, the films community coordinator Greg LeMieux and Ms. Landa herself, the focus of which was on Education and Nature.

DREFF is a new initiative of GFDD and FUNGLODE, which aims to raise awareness and understanding of environmental issues through films, panel discussion, workshops and community activities. At the same time, the Festival celebrates the beauty and diversity of the DRs natural heritage and offers insights into attitudes and actions that will contribute to its appreciation, conservation and sustainable use.

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