KarunaNews Story

The Saturday morning Middle Eastern breakfast is a staple of the social calendar in the small Austrian town of Traiskirchen best known for its large refugee center and adjacent community garden where refugees tend the herbs, vegetables and fruit. Harvest proceeds help support the project and a non-profit supermarket that caters to people on lower incomes, while produce is free for those working at the garden. In 2016, the year after overcrowding led to international headlines when 4,500 asylum seekers were assigned to a center designed to house 1,800, some locals and refugees convinced the municipal government to give them a 2.5-acre plot of land and launched Garten der Begegnung, the Garden of Encounter. The garden is only part of the project’s activities. On Saturday afternoons, people from the refugee center play sports, practice their German, or get help deciphering their paperwork, get advice on the asylum process. The team also runs a woodworking shop and sewing shop, offers catering services and helps refugees left without shelter in winter.