Vandals hit refugee’s garden project
A Syrian refugee trying to build a new life in Lower Hutt is heartbroken after vandals destroyed his garden.
Khaled Al Jouja moved to the area about 18 months ago, and for the past month had been growing plants in his backyard to turn into a business.
Common Unity Project founder Julia Milne said Al Jouja was one of their gardeners, but alongside that had been developing his own business to try to get off the benefit and into self-employment.
“Everyone’s been wrapped around him since he got here, supporting him to help him realise his dream of getting his nursery going and doing what he loves to do best . . . growing trees and flowers.”
But on Tuesday morning Al Jouja went out with his family and on his return discovered his garden had been vandalised.
Milne said pretty much all of it was gone.
“Just vandalised, destroyed. It’s been a very heartbreaking time for him and his family. He drove over to see me and he couldn’t speak . . . He’s still trying to make sense of it now.
“I can’t imagine why anyone would want to hurt or damage anything that he did.”
Milne said she had no way of knowing if the attack was targeted, “but when I went to his house it was very clear what they had destroyed was all of the stuff that was ready for market.
“There was a lot of other things that were left, tiny seedlings outside the greenhouse weren’t touched, just all of his stock. That did make us this think there was something sitting behind this.”
Milne said that is how it feels to Al Jouja too.
“He and his family have had such an amazingly positive experience of integrating and becoming New Zealanders so this is rather shocking.”
Police had visited the garden and done leaflet drops.
Milne said they want to restore Al Jouja’s faith and are putting on an event tomorrow from 10am at the community enterprise hub in Waiwhetu Rd. People are encouraged to bring potting mix and cuttings to help him get going again.