LA TERENURI

The Playgrounds (La Terenuri) Mănăștur is a vast green area within a buildings' blocks area, apparently abandoned, but frozen juridically and used informally in many ways by its inhabitants: gardening, walking the dogs, children playgrounds, sport fields, walking in the forest and other informal leisures. In the last 4 years a civic initiatives started here engaging the citizens and activating them to formulate a common request towards the Townhall, in the way of transforming this area into a public park. Also the initiative started an experimentation process of participatory urbanism and designed temporary functions for the park: a stage, benches, a garden, swings, repairing the existing infrastructures, waste bins and also creating here a cultural hub by creating the Days of the Neighbourhood, all of these with the purpose of creating a common space for the inhabitants to meet, express and act for their neighbourhood, Mănăștur.

La Terenuri - Spațiu Comun în Mănăștur had done community interventions since 2012 in the space located (give references), and many activities had been done with the guide of Lala Panait and Silviu Medesan. All this efforts had the intention to bring people together, revalue our direct or local environment and call to action.

The past interventions had risen the awareness in neighbors, regular citizens of Cluj, municipality and property owner of the value of the area, especially the green area and the need for Cluj to have such spaces for community life. However all this actions have not been able to build a core or support group of neighbors or frineds of the area which can hold the present actions and future challenges. There is still a dependence of external stimulus like the ones La Terenuri - Spațiu Comun în Mănăștur and other organizations had offer to keep a vibrant and collaborative community in the area.

With the gain experience in this project and from other areas of expertise we recognize that Food is a special connector in communities. For this proposal we want to test if FOOD can helps us conform or built a group of neighbors and friends of the area which can hold the future actions in this community.

We know that some neighbors in the area still have a strong Cultural Tradition and expertise to grow their own vegetables also we sense certain pride that people have of the food they prepare, like Varza a la Cluj and Vinete. In some way everybody has the best recipe. Our proposal is to find and habilitate an area where we can have a short program of events related to food.

As these events outline the knowledge and skills people already have, we also want to introduce events that take the food issue a step forward:

- food waste issues, food industry impact on environment

- city food identity and labels

- urban gardens and food as means of entrepreneurship

- culinary workshops and activities for children

- discussions about possible forms of partnership: local authorities + local businesses + civil society groups - to achieve what they could not achieve alone

- participative cooking events that could eventually turn into a repeating event as it promotes local gastronomy, producers and products, and could create economic and social value.

This proposal includes a research of the topics related to food:

- Map of the culinary options of the area

- Map of stakeholders related to food

- List of known chefs that will like to collaborate in community activities - Book of local recipes

- identifying places where community cooking could take place

- identify if there already is a “food policy/strategy” for the city

Regarding the spreading of information about events and activities: we will use available social networks related to this area to rise the topic of Food but as not all community members use social media, we could identify a place with very good visibility where we could place a “panel” with posters about upcoming events. By doing this we want to find the actors/persons interested in the topic and invite them to be part of the team that will organize this events.

We had the opportunity to build on the past experiences that "La Terenuri" had with their participative approach. We had a series of conversations with Lala Panait and read the book "cARTier - Peripheral Interventions" which gave us an overall view of the actions taken in this area. With both sources we have an understanding of several social dynamics and needs. Enough to see that there is no Core Group of neighbors or friends of the area. And also enough to say that FOOD can bring people together and form this group.

We recognize that our Project Idea initiates mostly with secondary data. For this reason we shaped this proposal considering it as a participatory process.

From the specific local need in Manastur, we consider a problem the missing group in this community that can support the actions and activities to keep going. External aid is still needed to maintain the awareness of the need of this green area. So by FOOD we think that we will be able to "fix" a group in this area. This group might be the one taking other actions for their own problems.

As shown by local statistics, there is a lack of suitable spaces for public community life in Cluj. So these events are not only meant to be entertaining and fun, but they also have the role of raising awareness of the need of public green spaces and of the important role each member of the community has. Therefore, the events will “filter” individuals that are willing to take responsibility and participate in the community life. They will be part of our intended CORE Group who will take further our intervention and aim their activities in the direction of pointing and solving problems that are stringent to community life.

Potential externalities and risks affecting the project’s outcome could be divided into external and internal threats. Externalities consist mainly of the proprietors’ interests regarding the territory. It is possible that they will sell the whole site or that they will decide to use it for real estate investment without any concern regarding the activities and events going on there. Another risk is the local authorities’ lack of interest in such case.

Internal risks are related to the local community as the whole initiative is based on the responsiveness and active engagement of the neighborhood. If the community won’t take the responsibility to take over the administration of the utilities and the events, if there won’t develop a Core Group than the FOOD events won’t continue. Therefore we included in our project a training and a discussion series of couching those who are interested in the project to involve them even more and to help them with the practical issues in the first few months.