Agriculture for inclusion: the ‘Voices from the garden’ project and the experience of Antonio Ferrante, full professor at the Sant'Anna School, as a volunteer to help people with disabilities through teaching and practising agriculture

An amateur vegetable garden organised through theoretical and practical lessons in contact with nature to help differently abled people overcome the effects of disability. This is the meaning of the project 'Voices from the Garden. The children in the vegetable garden with their hands in the soil' in which Antonio Ferrante, full professor in Horticulture and Floriculture at the Institute of Crop Science of the Sant'Anna School, participated, offering his contribution as a volunteer. The project involved the participation of about 25 people with motor and/or cognitive disabilities in activities and lessons focused on nature and agriculture, to develop working, social, cognitive and emotional skills, create meaningful relationships and make them feel part of a group. Indeed, agricultural work in its many forms encourages the active participation of everyone and cooperation with other group members. The project allowed for the creation of a stimulating and structured environment, within which the various group activities brought important benefits to people as well as making them achieve the highest possible degree of autonomy and organisation. 

A book was produced from this experience, which recounts the social horticulture project carried out for differently abled people by the Solaris Cooperative, freely downloadable at the following link.