Bio-food for all

Friendship Association (Asociatia "Prietenia") launches the project "Bio-food for All – BPT". The "Prietenia" Association, in partnership with the AMURTEL Romania Association and the Sonnhalde Gempen Association, Switzerland, announces the start of the organic agriculture social project "Bio-food for All – BPT". The project is co-funded through a grant from Switzerland by way of the Swiss Contribution to the enlarged European Union, the Swiss contribution being 74,444.00 CHF, representing 88.16% of the total value of the project. It will be implemented over 12 months, from February 2016 to January 2017. The general objective of the "Bio-food for All" project is to create an integrated model of social inclusion activities for vulnerable people (adults with mental disabilities and young people who have left placement centers) together with activities of production, preservation and distribution of organic agricultural products, in a word, "bio-food".

The social beneficiaries of the project will be involved in ergotherapy activities in the midst of nature, since the garden and orchard provide the perfect context for therapeutic activities. The project will also mean the creation of two jobs for people with disabilities, thus achieving their insertion into the labor market.

The project will also create a consortium for the production, preservation and distribution of certified organic vegetables and fruits, the two Romanian associations joining their efforts so as to develop the financial sustainability of the social services they offer. "Bio-food for All – BPT" is a continuation of the activity of the two associations, which already cover part of the food needs of the beneficiaries of social services from their own production. The production of vegetables and fruits that exceeds internal needs is sold, thus covering part of the financial requirements of the residential and day social services. Besides this expansion of activity, the project also innovates through the training specific to organic agriculture that will be offered to the associations' new employees by Swiss experts, on behalf of the Sonnhalde Gempen Association, Switzerland. The "Bio-food for All" project will have a heartening result not only for the vulnerable people involved, but also for the people of Bucharest: the growth and diversification of the range of organic vegetables and fruits, fresh or dehydrated, produced and delivered by the two Romanian associations. Thus, Bucharest residents will be able to purchase superior-quality vegetables and fruits at the producer's price. The products, freshly harvested or preserved, will go from the greenhouses, garden or orchard directly onto consumers' plates, through specialized delivery services, described on the website of the "Prietenia" Association: www.prietenia.org

The "Prietenia" Association was founded in 1996 as a Romanian, apolitical, non-profit non-governmental organization, with the object of assisting, supporting and caring for children and adults with special needs, and using as its working method the curative pedagogy and social therapy initiated by Rudolf Steiner. In 2006, with the support of the Swiss association Sonhalde Gempen, an integrated center of sociotherapy and organic agriculture (garden and orchard) was inaugurated in the commune of Pantelimon.

The Sonnhalde Gempen Association was established in 1967 by a psychiatrist from Zürich together with parents of children with autism. In 1971, an educator from Sweden created a system of sheltered housing and a school for children with autism at Gempen, a small village near Basel.

Over the following years the Sonnhalde Association developed on several levels: a vocational school (grades IX-XII), sheltered workshops, animal husbandry, agriculture, forestry, assisted housing, a home for the elderly, etc.

The AMURTEL Romania Aid Association was founded in 1995 by a group of local and international women volunteers. After analyzing the needs in post-communist Romania, AMURTEL specialized in the field of inclusive education for children with special needs, as well as social services for abandoned children and youth.