Community in bloom

Mariam’s garden is a welcoming sanctuary. A fertile space that beautifully captures the human and nature’s ability to coexist.

There are 19 fruit trees and an abundance of vegetable patches. Lanterns are strung from the rafters of a large pergola. A rustic chook-house is nestled between a thicket of flowerbeds that radiate a vivid palette of purples, blues and pinks.  A tiny machine pops and fizzes as it churns out a string of bubbles, each of them creating a kaleidoscopic flicker in the face of the afternoon sun.

Most days the garden is full of people. Usually they’re familiar faces but on the odd occasion strangers will walk in, too.

Today is no different. A coterie of women help themselves to servings of food from a table under the pergola. Tendrils of smoke coil from the dishes infused with traditional African flavours.

“I think with technology these days we need to bring back families to have a meal together,” Mariam says.

“The loss of community is the loss of humanity.”

Fifteen years ago, Mariam Issa, her husband and their four children migrated to Australia as refugees from Somalia. Pregnant with her fifth child, Mariam and her family were resettled in a government-owned house in Brighton, home to some of Melbourne’s wealthiest people. But Mariam felt the sense of community was lost somewhere between the tree-lined streets, gated mansions and manicured lawns. Together with German-born Katharina Kons, she started a community garden in her backyard with the hope of reviving community values in the neighbourhood.

Physically, Mariam and Katharina could not be more unalike. Katharina, with her German roots is blonde and fair. Somali Mariam is dark skin with exquisite brown eyes. So when a little girl asked the two women if they were sisters, they could not help but laugh. It still has them in hysterics today. But Mariam and Katharina admired the rawness in the way the young girl saw them: “through a lens of innocence,” Mariam says.

“I didn’t realise it the beginning. Every woman I saw was beautifully manicured. We go out with our beautiful masks on, she says.

“But when the barrier is broke(n), we are the same at our core.”

Mariam and Katharina first met while dropping their daughters off at school. Katharina says Mariam stood out to her because of the way she tried hard to get to know the other mothers.

“I saw Mariam shaking hands and introducing herself to everyone”, Katharina says.

“I looked at her and thought, ‘Oh my god, I’ve lost that.’”

The two women anointed their friendship that day over several cups of coffee.

“I poured my heart (out) to her of how lonely it was to be in Brighton,” Mariam confesses.

And Katharina told Mariam she, too, was struggling to build a new cultural identity.

“Both of us wanted that sense of belonging,” says Katharina.

“We realised [the garden] was a project we could work on together,” Mariam says.

The garden cast a new venture towards purpose in the face of a cultural shift. It was their humble attempt to restore a sense of belonging and bring the community together again.

“Back home [in Somalia] we used to do a lot of communal gardening and cooking. I walked to school in cornfields and went to school under a mango tree.  Women had their own space where they grow their vegetables, harvest them and take them to the next village to sell.”

She wanted to bring those community values to her new urban life.

“We need to come back to basics,” she explains.

“Seasons come and go, it’s the cycle of life. Many of us have become so detached from it,” Katharina adds.

They named the garden RAW which underpins these sentiments but also reflects their desire to empower women. RAW is also an acronym for Resilient, Aspiring Women.

“It translates beautifully,” says Mariam.

Since its opening, the RAW garden has had visitors from all walks of life.

“Some walk in troubled and some just want to connect with other women. Every story is different. We get people coming to us and saying ‘I’m really good at this, so how can I help?’”

And then there are those who simply come to garden. Mariam tells me of a lady who walked in one day simply “for closure”.

“[She] was going through a hard time. So she came just to garden and be part of an organisation.”

Mariam says the garden is also her way of giving back to Australia.

“I feel truly blessed to be [here]. Despite all political issues, I feel I was really given a chance to blossom and start over. This is a way of saying thank you,” she says.

“I really do feel reborn in this country.”