2024-01-30 18:15:50
Valladolid (EFE).- Valladolid opened a therapeutic garden this Tuesday with the help of the INTRAS Foundationwithin a European pilot project that already operates in Greece and Germany and that seeks to extend throughout the EU to improve the well-being of people with mental illness, the elderly or those with cognitive impairment, but also that of all those in the neighborhoods in which that settle.
This therapeutic garden, which follows the one already operating in Palencia, connects nature and the environment with the benefits that this brings both physically and mentally and is expected to be extended to the other three provinces in which INTRAS operates in the Community : Salamanca, Burgos, Ávila, explained the director of the Foundation, Pablo Gómez.
European project
The European project, Healing Gardener, is funded by the EU Erasmus+ program, and for two years it has involved around twenty people in its design, construction and implementation, many of them users of INTRAS itself.
One of them has been Amador, 53 years old, who has participated in its construction, and for whom this work has served to raise his self-esteem and “forget the stigma of the disease,” schizophrenia in his case.
This space allows the “caregiver” to become a “caregiver” with non-pharmacological treatments that provide social well-being, social interaction and integration.
People with special abilities have received training to design and maintain a therapeutic garden, inaugurated in Valladolid by the INTRAS Foundation, which improves people’s well-being. EFE/Nacho Gallego
Horticulture and wintering
The garden, which in a few months will also be opened to the residents of the Parquesol neighborhood of Valladolid, is divided into a sensory area, a physical activity area and a horticulture area, and has a greenhouse in which its own seeds are grown, of native species of lettuce, onions, garlic or beans from Valladolid, Palencia and Zamora.
The activities that will be designed in this garden will be tailored to each individual, working on cognitive skills, exercising to slow down or de-stress, breathing, increasing resilience or fine mobility that involves, for example, planting seeds and at the same time creating a community with others. residents of the neighborhood, detailed the project coordinator, Daria Smolyanska.
And it has had the advice of Palmlöf Therapeutic Gardens, which already has several gardens in Coslada, in Madrid, which have proven the impact that this initiative has on users, since according to a study by the Complutense University it delays by two months on average the entry into dependency and reduces the use of medications such as anxiolytics, explained one of its managers, José María Salas.
Circular economy
The coordinator of the INTRAS labor area in Valladolid, Laura Sánchez, has stressed that it is also a circular economy project, since the seeds grown and the garden seedlings will nourish her one-hectare farm in Villamarciel (Valladolid), where they bottle up to seven canned products to bring the garden closer to the table.
The garden sits on a plot donated by the Valladolid City Council for 75 years and meets the requirements to be therapeutic with a universal design, safe, with guided activities, elements that stimulate the senses, spaces for reflection and for socialization, which invite users to leave their homes and with native and sustainable plants, among others. EFE
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