Saturday, the 6th of February was a rainy, moody day in Athens. This, however, didn’t stop a group of Climate Advocates and a bunch of local residents of the Exarchia district in central Athens from coming together to make plans on how to make their neighbourhood greener and a better place to live.The meeting was the result of a group of Greek Climate Advocates’ persistent efforts over the past three months. They would march up and down the narrow streets of Exarchia, knocking on doors and speaking to the local residents.

“Beatrice, one of the Advocates, brought Urban Bloom to my doorstep”, said Angie, a journalist and resident of Exarchia who now plans to get the roof of her building greened. “What I particularly liked about the “Urban Bloom” idea was the chance to learn how to green our roofs, terraces and balconies using simple, recycled material, which is friendly to the environment. I was easily convinced, so next we went knocking on the other 25 doors of my apartment block, getting everybody else to agree on greening our building’s roof”.

This was the first time that the 6 Climate Advocates involved in the project, local residents and many friends and volunteers of Urban Bloom came together to meet each other and exchange ideas.

Following the model of the “World Café”, the Advocates invited participants to form three working groups and brainstorm about three questions written on three big sheets of paper: What are the main conditions for having quality of life? How will climate change, resource depletion and increased pollution affect our lives? And how can we raise awareness about environmental issues and find common ground to start from?

Urban Bloom, or its Greek version “Astiki Anthisi”, is an innovative, grass-roots project that aspires to make a lasting impact on the very important area, both socially and historically, of central Athens. The aim is not just to leave behind a cluster of green roofs, but, above all, to engage local residents. “We want to engage the local community to take full ownership of this initiative. This is why we are planning everything with them. We will run a series of workshops to inform people on energy efficiency and green roofs, on how they can change their consumer habits to reduce the effects of climate change and last but not least, how they can green their roofs themselves, using recycled, environmentally friendly materials,” says Beatrice Yannakopoulou. “It takes a long time to organize, but it is an ongoing learning process for us and everybody else involved”, says Jennifer Hinton.

Urban Bloom will kick off with a street photo exhibition on how local residents relate to their current, “cement-dominated” environment, and aims to culminate in springtime with the blooming of roofs all over Exarchia.