Melbourne’s International Flower & Garden Show is a big event in the city's calendar, drawing tourists and locals alike. The 2010 show runs from 24-28 March and this year, World Vision will have a presence.

So why is World Vision at Melbourne's Flower & Garden Show? Our garden exhibition will highlight our efforts to combat climate change through sustainable environmental practice.

World Vision is committed to addressing the effects of climate change – at present the world’s poor are most vulnerable; they tend to live in environmentally degraded areas and lack the resources to protect themselves from natural disasters.

World Vision’s permaculture garden at the Show has been designed as a space in which people can engage with the effects of climate change on global poverty.

Our projects around the world implement practical solutions that address the problems the communities we work with face. In Sri Lanka, permaculture techniques have been identified as potentially the most successful methods to deal with the food shortages by climate change: particularly drought and crop failure.

World Vision’s One Earth solution is providing support to several communities in Sri Lanka – helping them to plant drought resistant crops and encouraging families to cultivate their own plots using sustainable farming models.

Drawing on permaculture techniques, the garden links practices in the field and at home in Australia. Transportable vegetable grow bags that can sustain a family facing drought or displacement in Sri Lanka can also be used in urban centres such as Melbourne, where people lack space and land to cultivate their own food.

World Vision is using recycled and donated materials in its garden. The display will feature a traditional Sri-Lankan kitchen with an open fire, large iron cauldrons, a compost pile, a seed saving area, design station and an elevated green vegetable patch separated by recycled tires.

A chicken coop highlights the success of microfinance models within these communities, serving both as a source of food and income.

World Vision is working hard to find practical solutions we can implement to fight climate change, and is proud of the success we are achieving. If you are in Melbourne this March, come pay us a visit.

We'll be blogging from the site too! Come take a look at what we're up to here.

World Vision gratefully acknowledges the Melbourne International Flower & Garden Show  for providing exhibition space free of charge. All materials used in the garden have been recycled, sourced locally or donated.