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Notes from the garden
Paddling and flowing in urgent times
When Silvia came into the garden last week, I asked her how she was, she took her headphones out of her ears, and responded with a big smile ‘Very inspired!’ I was curious and wanted to feel inspired too.
Ear to the ground
Waking to the sound of my cat meowing and yowling for her breakfast 17 minutes before my alarm is set to jingle me awake. The bubbling of my limescale-caked kettle reaching a boil.
How the Story Garden grows: Jan 2023
Winter is one of my favourite times in the Garden. I love spending wet afternoons in the cosy back office rifling through leftover seeds, misty mornings pruning soft fruit bushes and cold but sunny days turning the steaming(!!) compost. This year, we’re trialling reduced working hours and programme delivery during January and February to align with the rhythms of the seasons, spend time reflecting on the year that has passed and planning for the future.
Voices of the Water - Stories in Action
Salina Khatun is a primary teacher and CEO of Kindle Corner as well as a local Somers Town resident. She and her team of storytellers have joined the Voices of the Water team by running water themed storytelling afternoons with young children and their parents, grandparents and guardians.
Gardens of a thousand hands
Recently I had a call with Jan Kattein, the architect Global Generation has worked with since 2015 when we collaborated to make the last Skip Garden. Jan is writing a book called London made by Londoners, and he was interviewing me for a chapter about Global Generation.
Voices of the Water
2022 saw the beginning of our Sign/Voices of The Water Program as we explored the hidden story of the River Fleet which flows under our feet in Kings Cross. Together with children and families from Brecknock and Torriano Primary Schools and Frank Barnes School for Deaf Children we explored the River Fleet through storytelling, art, movement and adventures.
Looking back on 2022
As we approach the end of 2022 and the darkest days of the year, we enter into a natural time to pause and reflect. Last week we held our winter away day and came together as a team to look back on our work. There were so many individual and collective highlights to the year, with the overriding one being a sense of togetherness and appreciation for what each and everyone brings. For me this year has been a year of moving, transitioning and coming together.
NAVIGATING A NEW CHAPTER
When Martina passed the baton of ‘barge mama’ on to me earlier in the year, I remember feeling both excited and daunted. Although I grew up by the water, I had no experience of living or working on a boat; this was as much new territory for me as it was for Global Generation.
Growing Techniques at the Story Garden
As the winter sets in, the garden slows down; trees lose their leaves, plants hunker down or die back, there’s a crispness to the air, a glow to the sun, new birds appear and some start for the south.
RHS Hampton Court Palace Garden Festival - July 2022
This year we are delighted to have showcased a piece of our inner city oasis at the RHS Hampton Court Palace Garden Festival, the world-renowned flower show. We wanted to inspire visitors to reimagine what the Story Garden feels like, with the different elements and layers of stories that are created in the garden. Built for, and by, the local community.
A DRAGON EMERGES AT PHOENIX COURT
The spirit of the ancient river flows through our environment, connecting and weaving threads of experience from across the community, calling along the banks to bridge distant shores and differences, bringing people together through the sharing of stories. As the sun starts to warm the earth in spring, the sleeping dragon awakens and roars life into our tales and mysteries, and the world comes into life and light.
Here and there… Now and back then
Reading Lucy’s blog made me reflect on a number of journeys and the stories behind them. When we first established Global Generation we had the hope that one day we would be able to employ the young people who had been through our programmes.
The dUST, THE DRAGON AND THE LETTERS: oN HIDDEN RIVERS
For about 100 days a year, across the Atlantic Ocean, a river of dust made by siliceous shells and skeletons belonging to ancient diatoms (single cell algae), travels from the Bodélé Depression in the african region of Chad, to the Amazon Rainforest, swept up by strong saharan winds.
Voices of the Water fellow Lucy and the Summer Holiday Club 2022
When I think about water, my favourite memories have always been playful experiences and sometimes even now that I am a young adult, I still imagine myself as a mermaid. I take a deep breath in, I dive deep below the surface, slowly gliding, mimicking the motion of waves using my body.
DIA DE LOS MUERTOS CELEBRATION
On Saturday 29 October, we opened our gates to thousands of people for the biggest Dia de los Muertos (or Day of the Dead) festival outside Mexico!
Lost water species: Remembering together
I have always felt relaxed near water and while being in the sun surrounded by unfamiliar smiles, water always gave me the sense of happiness. I didn’t care about my hair getting wet as I was laughing and serene.
Eating staff lunch together
The Paper Garden has been growing in its new home over the past year which has come with challenges and rewards. One of the most important factors in keeping the garden growing and the community classroom walls rising has been the fact that every day the whole team sits together and shares lunch.
Stories of place: Through the winter and into spring
Our work with Afghan refugees continued through the winter months. Working with a new, smaller group of Afghan men, some of retirement age, having left families and successful lives behind in Afghanistan, trying to adjust to a new world. In this way, the sessions took the shape of a men’s wellbeing group, supporting them to integrate and connect outside the hotels, slowly meet new groups and communities, or venturing out with greater confidence.
A Waste Free World
As part of the Youth Food & Climate Ambassadors' programme, Kathryn and Abena set them the task to share what they've learnt and been inspired by. They created their own social action projects and the speech below is by Zara, which she shared in front of 100 of people at her Jack Petchey SpeakOut Challenge.
Months in the growing garden and rising classroom walls
The build of the new Paper Garden is underway. In the summer Keltbray stripped the metal walls of the giant old shed, leaving a frame for us to grow a new garden in.