Gardening School to Support Youth Inclusion and Environmental Sustainability: A Moroccan Case Study

The current planetary crisis demands solutions for sustainable planetary wellbeing for all living, today and future. Countries in the Global South are highly vulnerable to climate change due to warmer climates, economic structures, and weaker adaptation capacities (Adare, 2018). North Africa and the Mediterranean region are one of the hardest hit areas, warming faster than the global average (WMO, 2024). Morocco’s vulnerability is due to rising temperatures, droughts, desertification, extreme weather, and its dependence on climate-sensitive agriculture (Praag et al., 2021). Climate change impacts people differently based on their social, economic, cultural, and environmental contexts, with those already vulnerable (esp. poorest) at higher risk (Adapattu, 2019).

This is a collective case study - and a story - of a “school of gardening” from Morocco, but also a story of a global team of youth researchers working together within the planetary youth research framework (Laine, 2023). This study is an example of how to elaborate knowledge production between Global South and Global North. This story especially wants to tell about young people's multi-species engagements, on their planetary citizenship (Salonen et al., 2024) and "planetary praxis" (Heikkinen et al., 2024), i.e. concrete caring of diverse species in diverse environments. There are still relatively little researched examples on the initiatives that try simultaneously to support the wellbeing of youth and environment. In our presentation we tell stories of the young gardening students and young trainers of the school about their pasts, presents and futures - and about the school as one type of social innovation. We end by presenting what our case study tells us about the potential of youth research to reach out to explore the use of natural resources in a sustainable and ethical way - and to find sustainable living solutions for future generations.