GardeNYCology

In most cities, individualism and the lack of time make people unhappy. Theres is a great problem of loneliness, people lack friends and others cannot afford spend money in cultural events. Young and old people never want to go out to enjoy life.

At the same time, there is a crisis in the way our society provide opportunities to talented people. It is usually an unfair system, as it lets qualitfied people out of a possible job connected with his or her talent.

We organize communitary events that are multilingual, multicultural, with different arts involved -art, literature, music, circus, theater-, the practice of sports or environmental issues. Our events take place always community gardens and public parks which connect qualified and talented people, mostly from the same community with the neighborhood.

We want to promote what we do so that other people around the world can create similar events.

Communities are complex and so are the different connected problems we want to face with solutions. Some of them have to do with the lack of cultural life in many neigborhoods, we mean free events, open to the public. Besides, the indoor places we could use are expensive -theaters or rental spaces-. At the same time, we feel some people need to spend more time out. For these two reasons, the best places we chose are open air and public places.

Another thing we have explored is that many cities are extremely multicultural, but events are only focused to every community. We organize multilingual and multicultural events, we want people know each other, acept the difference and grow together discovering the different artistic ways can be used to exprrerss themselves, even food or music from every culture.

Our events use local talent to promote local artists. They can sell their works -books, music, art- to create a connection with the neigborhood. With the help of sponsors, we publish books with the best literary works of the community and the money raised from the sales go mainly to the authors.

Our events have been in New York so far, in communitary gardens in Williamsbourg, Brooklyn. The area has been lately been attacked by gentrification. Besides, the different communities don't usually mix together. Events take place, but they are oriented to each community.

Communitary gardens in this area are like islands we have used to explore this kind of multilingual multicultural events. They enjoy these places, grow their flowers and vegetables and now, with our events they can also enjoy art, music, literature and almost of the ways they can express as part of different cultures. Apart from the outdoor events, we have celebrated also indoor events in many different places in Manhattan, Queens and the Bronx, we have organized more than 50 events in around 5 years. We have tried to make them multilingual and multicultural in our more beloved events Culture With No Limits. We have learned that what we are doing can be done in other countries. We are going to start in London neigbourhoods and also in Spain. And also other countries in the rest of Europe, the African Continent, Latin America or other States of USA also want to create GardeNYCology inspired events.

The Prelude to GardeNYCology. SOME OF OUR EVENTS since 2014 in New York

Our main aim is to keep on doing our well organized events with high quality talented people. As the places are very affordable or free it is possible to create festivals that can last a whole day or event some days. This means a lot of life to the neigborhoods. The sponsors we are involving will make our events more frequent and better.

For us, acquire talent is not difficult. We have been organizng events to the community, we also create different networks in social websites. For instance, we have more than 1500 songwriters in New York with an incredible talent, we usually organize events to share all the talent they have. We have published more than 200 books in English, Spanish and now even in other languages. We translate a lot of books to make them avialable to the people that could never read them in the original language.

We want to go on doing what we do well and also we want to turn it global. Not just for the event we are going to create ourselves. Besides, we want to help other people create similar events. Our philosohy is If we can improve our community, you will also be able to do it.

Appart from a wide experience organizing events, we are also passionate educators. We want to create workshops and video tutorials in different languages to explain how easy it can be to turn an apparently crazy idea into a sucessful event.

As John Navidad, -the creator of GardeNYCology- states in his blog, his main word is SHARING. If we keep on having more and more sponsors we will be able to give all the contents and workshops in the internet completely free to users from the whole world, which means a lot of global exposure for our sponsors and donors.

There are two things in which we are trying to be innovative.

On one hand, in the desing of the events themselves: multilingual, multicultural, involving as many artistic media as possible-. Also the way we gather, impprove and promote local talent is remarkable.

And also in the way we promote similar events around the world. The world is full of communitary gardens and parks that could be used to create these events. Our flow of contents, expertise and know-how is going to be made easy to implement.

We want to design our contents and workshops in as many languages as we can. First, in English, then, also in Spanish and latter, also in other languages. Our target is going to be a very significant part of the communary innovators all around the world who understand these two languages.

We use technology to connect, to promote and to share.

-CONNECT: with sponsors and donors to explore their participation. To find talented people in every community and organize the best events.

-PROMOTE: we use social networks to make our events sucessful in every city or neigborhood.

-SHARE: is the word connected in our philosohpy that makes our knowledge available to other people around the world. Also, this makes our events and brands more attractive to our sponsors and donors.

We are experts in the use of internet since year 2000. When no social network existed and there was no usability experts in every corner, as today we were kind-of content/community managers and experts in usability. When there were no many people with followers we created content for thousands of people. Now, we know what we are doing. In a world in which people THINK they know a lot, we keep on learning and applying innovation to new tools.

I hope to keep on being humble when I say this project does not expect to do something. Instead, it suceeds in bringing cultural life to communites, it gives balance to the different communities than coexist in every neigborhood, it also provides with hope to talented creatos and the certainty to sponsors and donors that they are providing funds to a project that has a measurable impact in the neigborhoods and also in the internet in the contents and knowledge we share.

When John Navidad was a child, in his neigbourhood there use to be a celebration every year in the day of Saint John. He was just a child, but he discovered that if he gathered with the other children and started to organize all the details of the events with a system they could create amazing and life changing events. They had games for children, they cooked sardines for all the people, free chocolate, cinema projections, even fireworks. They could chieve everything during a day. Events create the magic that we are the owners of our neigborhood and we can change the world if we had that feeling and the appropriate methodology.

This is year, we are operating in New York, soon in London, a first event in Bangladesh and some others in Spain.

Right now: our impact area is the population of Williamsburg: 150.713

In a year: we can multiply the total area by ten in different countries.

In five years, if we have the resources to do it, we can change the life of 500 million people, once our network is fully operative.

We know how to do it. The ball is now on the roof of the sponsors, donors and institutions than should support us.

We are supporting an event in London for October and there is going to be a garden event in Bangladesh in September. New York and Spain are in our list this year. Then, many other countries in Europe and Latin America within a year: Colombia, Canada, Argentina, Mexico, Egypt, Chile, among others...

We re creating a strong and long term net of sponsors, donors and institutions around the world to go stronger and further.

In five years, the total network should be a reality, and fully operative, with many people doing their homework, this is, creating frequent quality events with talented artists in their countries following our directions and know-how.

There is a feeling than nature has to be more relevant in our lives. We can increase the amount of nature we have at home, the amount of hours we enjoy and breath pure oxigen in parks, gardens and there is also a need of improving and reducing our impact in the environment. Community gardens and public parks are key to achieve all this worldwide

To be honest, the main obstacle has to do with resources. We now depend totally on the decissions of our sponsors.

The idea of creating GardeNYCology, as a new brand is to increase our visibility and make it more attractive to the people and companies that support us.

We know what we are doing is very nececessary in our society, a very incredible and innovative way of changing our world starting from the roots and the communities.

We want to take care of people, as individuals living in every community and also as artists, creators who need to find their place in society.

We have the need of taking care of Nature, to make our world better and because if we increrase our awareness and reduce our impact we are taking care of Nature as well.

We are going to spread our brand and project and make it attractive to all the people, companies and institutions that can get closer to support us.

Internet and the social networks can be crutial to achieve relevance and the support we require. We strongly believe we are going to continue what we are doing, and our next events in London, Spain, New York and Bangladesh are going to show and confirm we are in the best pace.

The project is formed by John Navidad, with support of other people, collaborating in New York, Germany and London. John Navidad has a long experience creating cultural projects and events, since 1991. He has created events in New York, with more than 50 events organized since 2014, most of them in Manhattan.

COLABORATORS -at this stage of the project- -Jon Liechty, pianist, composer, expert in languages of the world. New York. -Nil Lus, BRazilian songwriter, musician, writer, living in Germany. -John Fernando, General Secretary of the African Cup in UK, London.- -Daniel Lutaaya, Managing Director of Diaspora Marleting Solutions, London.

We are people with a solid, specific experience and together we can create and turn almost impossible projects into reallity.

We are partenting with many non profits and companies in differents countries around the world.

Key resources: public institutions, sponsors, donors, buyers of cultural products, Patreon, crowdfunding.

Partners: companies, brands, local institutions worldwide.

Key Activities: organizing events, create content in the internet, provide workshops, publish music and literature, sell art life and virtually, and so on.

Type of interventions: mainly life events and virtual contents/campaigns.

Segments: general public for events and event organizers and activist or cultural buyers for virtual content, cultural products and workshops.

Value proposition: take people out to enjoy outside events, encourge and promote talented people, connect customers with talent. Also teach people how to organize outdoor events.

Our model is going to be 

Service Subsidization Model
We are going to achieve resources from virtual supporters, brands, sponsors and public institutions, to launch our products and organize events. The events are always going to be free to our public and then we will sell our cultural products.

We have started this project in New York City, where we have developed most of our past events since 2014 -more than 50 events-. For us it would be very important to be at the MIT Solve UN event in September, going back to our roots and showing the rest of the world that our model, now with the brand GardeNYCology can be developed everywhere in the world. As the sentence says: If you can make it here... you can make ite everywhere. Let's change the world going out to community gardens and public parks and let's have a healthier life, increasing our commitment with cultural talent, interculturallity and ecology.

We need to have contacts in the more countries of the world the bettter. If we can celebrate events in many countries it is going to be easier to show people that this type of events works with no limits.

We would love to work with communitary organizations, as our events have always be open to the community and our comunitary garden events in Brooklyn have tken place in community based organizations.

Besides, we consider that foundations, public institutions and even private donors could enjoy a lot the events we oraganize, as all the support and resources go directly to serve people, both talented individual and projects who create amazing works, books, music and art and also because we want to give these events to the community for free, enforcing their ties and helping they know each other, enjoying diversity, multicurality and multiligual differences.

Our project wants to help individuals in the communities express and take part in cultural life. If a talented person cannot provide his or her talent and show it to the community, we consider that tthe community itself has failed. For this reason, we want to organize these garden events so that people can show their talent and the neigborhood can meet the talent that is usually hidden.

All our events have always been open to all minorities and of course, as they represent in numbers the half of our population, Women are fundamental for us. We cannot conceive the inclussion in each and every of our events of as many women as we can. 

Girls and women are important as they have the talent, the voice and the message that needs to be shared and besides, we consider that in our audience always women have been very important. 

In many neigbourhoods, some people -and also women- cannot afford to pay for cultural events: cinema, theater, musical events. Our events are always free to enter and include many extras -as food, drinks and many free items-, as we consider culture as a main right the citiczens have and specially women, because culture is an amazing tool for change.

WWe  are so committed with social and cultural incusion that we insist in that our events have to be multilingual and multicultural, to embrace all the people in every community, including of course migrants and  refugees. Most of them come from countries where they spend many time socializing in public spaces and parks. 

For this reason it is  very welcoming for them to see and take part in our events. Besides, they can use them to show their talent and also to express themselves and tell us how did they left their country and arrived the new one. If we know each other it is much easier for us to understand and accept each other.

Cities are turning more and more individual. Somo people fall intro depression because they don't have something to do out in the streets. In many buildings some neigbours don't even say hello to other people they see every day.

This new cities require a new kind of socialization, that has to be organized in open, free and public spaces. Communitary gardens and parks can be found in every country. They are unbeatable places for this new kind of disruption. We organize these kind of events and also we are going to teach and show people all around the world to learn how to organize one of these events. 

If we all go outdoors to meet talented people, to know people from other countries and cultures who live in our same street or city we are all growing a new and more tolerant and e are increasing the quality of life of our cities.

There are two ways to put down an arm. One is using police or different projects to change the lives of the people who have one.

The other is by changing the way our cities and our societies work. If we go to the seed of the problem, if all children could have a neigborhood full of culture accesible for all, if parents could reinforce their education using culture as a right to access to dignity maybe we could stop one or two teens to enter a gang in every street and maybe they could start new ways of life through work, music, art, literature. We have in our writers of some of the 200 books we have published people who could have changed their lives and maybe now they could be dead or in prision.

Culture is a right to achieve dignitiy and also a tool to change our society and make people more aware we all can start a new kind of life, and create a new kind of convivence in our cities based on tolerance and peace.