Visitors at the library in the Linnaeusstraat not only borrow, but can now also exchange cuttings and seeds here. Students from the Hogeschool van Amsterdam (HvA) help to green the neighborhood from the library and make it more sustainable. They also laid a facade garden. All this under the name library in bloom.
Neighborhood Campus Oost of the HvA is located in the OBA Linnaeusstraat to offer students a learning environment in practice. In exchange for credits, students work on questions that come from residents or neighborhood organizations and they in turn learn from the knowledge of residents. Every Wednesday morning, students give ‘help with digital’, they also set up a badminton and a jeu de boules club.
“We want to let students experience how real life is doing, with real residents,” explains coordinator Mariska Gunsing (35). “At the same time, we think it is just as important that the neighborhood benefits from it, so we assume questions from residents and the municipality.”
In OBA Linnaeus there is a special cupboard for the exchange of plant spots and there is a chest of drawers to exchange flower seeds (‘seed library’). There are also nature books from the private collection of gardener Eelco van de Motuin where visitors can browse.
A sustainable neighborhood is one of the goals of the Buurtcampus East. Mariska: “It turned out that people wanted more greenery. There was the question for a adopted cabinet with cuttings and a facade garden. A student has realized the facade garden as a graduation project.”
According to Mariska, a lot of use is made of the cutting box. “Sometimes he is completely robbed, I found that difficult in the beginning. But other times he is filled up.”
Student Social Work Vic den Draak (21) has been doing an internship at Bieb in Bloom for almost a year. With his care profile, he initially wanted to do an internship in a psychiatric department, but afterwards he is very happy with this internship. “I learned here that you can easily get social contact with local residents through greenery, and how you can mean something for people through that way.”
Mariska explains: “We organize here ‘Bakkie outside the library’. Then we put a table outside, we pour coffee and tea and work a bit in the facade garden. We give the plants water and rap litter.”
Vic: “A local resident appealed to us.” What fun this is, what are you? ” She came up with a fierce story about her neighbors.
Also a question from the neighborhood? Mail to Mariska Gunsing: m.j.gunsing@hva.nl.
