Recently, I was nominated for the title of “Magdeburger Citizen of the Year 2022” (Magdeburger des Jahres 2022) after launching a project that aims to help take care of young trees in the city as part of a “watering challenge”: the Baumfeuerwehr (“tree fire brigade”). The goal of the project is to encourage kids and families to take responsibility locally in their area and help water young trees. And what better way to motivate kids except with a converted cargobike that functions like a fire truck, complete with electronics, flashing lights and pump system? Add some fancy vests for kids and adults, and voila: a fun project for months of drought is born!

After a first trial run with improvided electronics, a more detailed version of the cargobike was created and taken out to water trees in the summer of 2022 several times, mostly around our own living area but also in more remote parts of the city, where the city itself was not able to water the trees enough. There, we met with other activists to commonly work on watering the trees.









Eventually, the project achieved some attention by local media, resulting in a nomination for a citizen of the year award that is organized by the local paper Volksstimme yearly:
Finally, this culminated in the award for 6th place in the “competition”, where the title was practically awarded to all the nominees with a reader-voted ranking: read here
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