Analysis Of St. Hansgården
St. Hansgården is an after school program that provides a learning environment in which children can interact directly with nature. It features a permaculture farm, a forest garden, livestock, a café, and much more. We chose to focus our case study on this stop due to the diverse community St. Hansgården both serves and cultivates. The program is located in the Lund municipality of Sweden. It is open from 2:00 to 6:00 PM for kids within the school district. The program takes the opportunity to not just look after children, but more so to teach them a holistic approach to sustainability. They do so by creating a co-creational environment that encourages children to thoughtfully and responsibly engage with themselves, the earth, and their community.
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Hansgården and Swedish culture. The program provides a context in which responsibility is negotiated between parents, teachers, and children (Perälä-Littunen et al.). St. Hansgården hosts events such as a Christmas Fair, Harvest Festival, a bee market, and more. The children work at these events and prepare for them by selling homemade food and providing services to the community. Giving children such responsibility acts as an expression of trust on the part of the program. These events foster a sense of pride in the kids for doing their own work and serving others. They take their tasks seriously and feel that they are contributing to something important. This can also be seen in St. Hansgården’s rabbit program in which kids own individual bunnies and are responsible for them. This makes the children feel like they hold an important role in the farm. Additionally, it helps teach them that animals are not toys, but rather they have life and must be taken care of in order to feel good (St. Hansgården). Overall, we see that St. Hansgården’s holistic approach to sustainability, as influenced by its community context, fosters a sense of collectivity and altruism in children and for the community which involves environmental sustainability but is also much larger than
Hansgården and Swedish culture. The program provides a context in which responsibility is negotiated between parents, teachers, and children (Perälä-Littunen et al.). St. Hansgården hosts events such as a Christmas Fair, Harvest Festival, a bee market, and more. The children work at these events and prepare for them by selling homemade food and providing services to the community. Giving children such responsibility acts as an expression of trust on the part of the program. These events foster a sense of pride in the kids for doing their own work and serving others. They take their tasks seriously and feel that they are contributing to something important. This can also be seen in St. Hansgården’s rabbit program in which kids own individual bunnies and are responsible for them. This makes the children feel like they hold an important role in the farm. Additionally, it helps teach them that animals are not toys, but rather they have life and must be taken care of in order to feel good (St. Hansgården). Overall, we see that St. Hansgården’s holistic approach to sustainability, as influenced by its community context, fosters a sense of collectivity and altruism in children and for the community which involves environmental sustainability but is also much larger than