In 2024 Egeriado entered a a three-year partnership with stichting Straatboer to support them with the development and roll-out of their ‘Straatboer Make-over’ project in the Netherlands.
Stichting Straatboer, founded in 2019, focusses on social & circular greening of stone paved front gardens of social housing. Straatboer aims at social greening as to create a more multiple-layered value compared to the standard ‘anonymous’ way of greening. Together with the residents they create a greener living environment, they involve the neighbors (social cohesion) and also enhance the awareness of residents on biodiversity and climate adaptation (mentality change). They exclusively use secondhand plants (circular) and thereby prevent excess planting material being destroyed. This personal, out-of-the-box, and circular approach is what makes the ‘Straatboer Make-over’ so powerful.
After a successful pilot in 2022 of 15 gardens they realized 90 garden ‘make-overs’ in 2023 and additionally started two pilots with two new housing corporations. Their mission is to train local ‘Straatboeren’ in every city in the Netherlands who can then execute these Make-overs. The goal is to be active in at least 10 Dutch cities after 3 years, and so contribute to more connection in the neighborhoods, more contact between neighbors, a more pleasant living environment for social housing tenants, and the recovery of biodiversity.
The support from Egeriado will Straatboer to realize the roll-out of their Make-overs in the Netherlands by developing a training for Straatboeren, the set-up of a residents participation program, and a second-plant sharing platform.
