The launch event of the Interreg NWE programme, IMAGINE, took place in Paris and Moussy-le-Neuf (Ile-de-France) on the 5th & 6th November 2019.
Since last January, seven partners from Belgium, Luxembourg, France, United Kingdom and the Netherlands are involved in this programme.
IMAGINE will support the development, testing and implementation of various social incubation models, including access to land and professional support for young people in urban and peri-urban market gardening, in Paris, London, the Province of Namur, the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg and Eindhoven in the Netherlands.
The objective is also to create a transnational network on social innovation issues in market gardening to ensure long-term effects and help other organizations, including local authorities, to replicate the model and adapt it to their own context.
The event was therefore an opportunity for the project partners to present their model to the general public. For example, the BEP highlighted its social market gardening project, developed in partnership with the Coopérative Paysans&Artisans, the CPAS de Namur and the Forem, which should in the long run participate to the reintegration of 25 young people.
In addition, the commune of Moussy-le-Neuf has introduced its project, extending over four hectares of land owned by the commune and intended to provide organic vegetables, the canteens of the two local schools as well as the inhabitants, via vending machines.