Royal Botanical Gardens in Hamilton, Ontario

2008 will see the last two courses of the Home Farm HT Certificate offered in March and then September.  In September there will be another 24 graduates to add to the Home Farm HT Certificate alumuni!!  I have to thank Nancy Lee Colibaba and my billets host and hostess for taking such good care of me!  See HT Education for more details.

Santiago de Chile

As I have said before, Santiago de Chile is the home of Herbarium www.herbarium.cl, the creation of Marie Arana Urioste, HTR since 1989. Marie is the first professionally registered horticultural therapist by the AHTA in South America. She has created the first Horticultural Therapy Certificate, accredited by the AHTA offered in South America. Dr. Rosemary Kroneberg Contzen a friend, colleague and student of Marie’s plays a significant role in supporting Herbarium with knowledge, experience and hard work. In November 2007, Herbarium and Home Farm partnered in a one month intensive Horticultural Therapy Certificate where I was asked to be a speaker for 2 of the 4 weeks.

What a place! Herbarium is about 5 acres of sensory gardens, rose and vegetable gardens, orchard and nursery. Marie encourages all to visit including some very special guests during my 2 weeks.

Cultiva cultivacrrs@yahoo.com is a psychosocial rehabilitation center in Santiago for persons with mental health issues. Two of Cultiva’s members work at Herbarium on a regular basis. Four of the Cultiva staff are graduates of the Herbarium/Home Farm Horticultural Therapy Certificate. Earlier in 2007, Cultiva had to move from their clubhouse because the owner decided to sell the property they were renting. Cultiva found another house to serve as a clubhouse in another neighbourhood.

Once they had moved in, the neighbourhood association president called the municipality to have them moved from the site because there were “crazy and dangerous people” in the neighbourhood. The municipality responded by prohibiting Cultiva staff and participants to occupy the house since August 2007. Upon eviction staff were only able to take the computer and whatever else they could carry at the moment before the municipality chained the gate.

When visiting again, Cultiva showed me the house which can only be entered with a municipal security guard opening the gate and monitoring the visit to prevent participants from being in the neighbourhood. The house is now very sad, with Cultiva not being able to take any of their belongings with them, including furniture, supplies and plant material.

Through the generosity of a local plant nursery, Cultiva now has a couple of rooms behind the sales areas for a lunch room, washroom, small office and kitchen to run their programs for 19 participants. Very inadequate but the caring spirit of Cultiva lives on while their association negotiates with the municipality for the use of their clubhouse. The stress that this situation has had on participants and staff is unacceptable and unnecessary. This response of the municipality is clearly due to the discrimination of people with mental health issues by the neighbourhood association.

On behalf of Cultiva, I would like to invite you and your organization to write a letter to the municipality asking that Cultiva be able to occupy their clubhouse on Los Prouos 6894 immediately as it is a national and international violation of human rights based on discrimination. The address if Municipality of La Rienas, Avenida Larrain 9925, Santiago Chile with attention to Lius Ploutt. I appreciate your continued support of people with mental health issues, both within your own community and organization but also on an international level.

The Community Center of Rehabilitation (Centro Communitario de Rehabilitation) made up of a group of persons with a variety of barriers also arrived at Herbarium where Marie, the students and myself toured the garden, sampling all the scents and textures. We also had an additional visit from an organization of children with Cerebral Palsy and their mothers participate in an HT session of sensory stimulation. The children lay on a blanket under a big tree on the back lawn of Herbarium while running their hands through a variety of flower petals, lavender flowers, pebbles, water and the soft fuzzy leaves of Lamb’s ears.

The children were obviously delighted to be out of their wheelchairs, having the freedom of the blanket and the sensations of the plant material. An Occupational Therapist accompanied the group and used the attraction of the plant material to encourage one child to exercise her muscles and to non verbally interact.

Julia Franco Julia.franco@vtr.net led a group of people to Herbarium that is involved in composting micro businesses. This project is a way of increasing income while taking stewardship of community and environment. This is a project that any community could embrace as a way of addressing poverty and building community.

La Pintana is a musical group of children that are visually impaired. The program was described by social worker Patricia Berrios as a tool to create confidence, a sense of purpose and self worth in children with visual impairments. The children and their instructor who is also visually impaired practice twice a week and are willing to perform where ever any body will have them! Their enthusiasm and rich Andean music was such a treat!

The students taking the course were made up psychologists, social workers, horticulturalists and persons wanting to make a difference to their community through Horticultural Therapy.

Two students this year came from Argentina. Another student came from Peru and was a representative of ANIA www.mundodeania.org. Please look at the ANIA website to see the fantastic work they are doing in Peru. I am very excited to say that next November I will be travelling to Peru to participate in some of their work!!

The Chilean Horticultural Therapy Association is now established! During the past year, the organization spent the much needed time with establishing their legalities and making presentations to municipal organizations spreading the word of HT. I was amazed at the types and settings that HT is now used in Santiago. The CH-HTA is doing a wonderful job in Santiago with the help of all the graduates of the Herbarium HT Certificate!!

A highlight of this trip was to travel to Santiago with Meg Hansen, a labyrinth builder and facilitator. Meg built a labyrinth at Herbarium over two weeks. Meg then gave a wonderful workshop and warming of the labyrinth that she built. Good work Meg!!

Marie and her husband provided me again with gracious hospitality. I was made to feel at home in Santiago and was able to spend the last week relaxing by their pool in beautiful 30C temperatures with great Chilean wine and too much time to plan the future of HT in Canada!

I would also like to thank Patty and Andres Beiger for doing such a great job as my translators. They simultaneously interpreted all my classes and made it very easy to communicate with all our participants. Please see contact them at their website www.amerocommunications.com for any of your translation needs! (Bill Clinton and Brad Pitt use my translators!!) All photos on this page are courtesy Andres Beiger.

Thank you Marie!

Glendale Gardens and Woodland, Victoria, BC

Students of the Home Farm HT Certificate at Glendale Gardens and Woodland.
By Christmas 2007, we had the first 3 students of this Home Farm HT Certificate
complete their homework and graduate!!  Congratulations Patricia (Toronto),
Nancy (Nanaimo) and Joanne (Campbell River)!!!