McGill University, Montreal, Canada
May 18-25, 2005
The May Workshop was the first gathering of all teams including all city teams, McGill staff and graduate students, and external interested community. The main objective of this International Workshop was to jointly revise the terms of reference and timelines for each city, and to identify issues and challenges to be considered on the field. Additionally, this workshop acted as a platform for local knowledge and experience exchange, and as a transition between the research and design phases, and the implementation and dissemination phases.
The May Workshop can be divided into three main sections:
- Presentations
The presentation section relates to the first two days of work, when each team presented a global idea of their project; explaining the key issues of their project as well as of the selected demonstration sites. A group of ten experts accompanied the second part of this section, acting in pairs, as moderators of key UA-issues such as: land tenure and policy; water and sanitation; participatory design; horticulture options and design; and resource mobilization and leverage municipal resources.
Visits to local distinctive UA examples
The second section includes guided visits to distinctive UA related initiatives in Montreal. Theses visits include: the Botanical Garden; Santropol-Roulant restaurant (meals-on-wheels program), Action Comuniterre (Social Community Garden) and Communities Gardens. Each program’s director guided every visit.
Charettes
During the charette, each city team had half-a-day to present a closer view of their project and the challenges faced, as well as to work in company of all other participants. The most important outputs of this section were the share of knowledge as well as allowing team members to recognize the work other cities are doing, learning and passing on knowledge.