Looking back on 2022
“So you’re always asked to sort of stretch a little bit more. But actually, we’re made for that. There’s a song that wants to sing itself through us, and we’ve just got to be available. Maybe the song that is to be sung through us is the most beautiful requiem for an irreplaceable planet, or maybe it’s a song of joyous rebirth as we create a new culture that doesn’t destroy its world.”
— Joanna Macy
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.
A big move to New Zealand
The biggest change we experienced at the beginning of the year was Jane Riddiford, Founder of Global Generation, moving back to her family in New Zealand and Martina Mina stepping in as Joint Director. Though Jane is now far away geographically, she is still very much an integral part of Global Generation, both through the spirit of the work carrying on, and through her being an Honorary Trustee and supporting the team to continue developing an Action Research approach to our work.
“I was both sad and excited to leave London and return to the land where I was raised: sad to leave so many people and projects, excited for new opportunities and to do that knowing that GG was in such good hands with Nicole, Martina and the rest of the team. Action research has supported my transition to the other side of the world, in that it encourages different ways of knowing. One of these ways has been working with legends and stories in old and new forms. Swimming in what is sometimes known as a mythological sea has helped me find a sense of connection and continuum in the Here and There my life has become. As you will read later the Taniwha dragon of Māori mythology has now been re-imagined by not only me but also GG staff and young people. We have experienced the way the age-old practice of storytelling can help hold and even heal fractures in our world. I am honoured to continue to contribute to GG’s work where I can. I am also relieved and heartened that many of the things that were not guaranteed before I left, have developed in new and sometimes unexpected ways. I feel more confident than ever that the Global Generation team will continue an increasingly important role of offering sanctuary and community through the rocky passes that will inevitably lie ahead.”
— Jane Riddiford
Read Jane’s blog about the transition to her new life in New Zealand here.
NEW BEGINNINGS AND LEARNING FROM EACH OTHER
“Stepping into the role of Joint Director this year has been at times daunting but has overwhelmingly brought me a sense of excitement and pride! I feel so privileged to be co-leading such an incredible team of people and I learn more and more from everyone at Global Generation every day. It’s been a year of change for everyone in the organisation but I feel we are strongest together and I’m very grateful to everyone playing a collective part in moving forward.
As a human being I feel I have grown much more than I could have imagined, both in terms of new knowledge and skills in areas I hadn’t worked before, but also just a much deeper understanding of what’s really important in the world and why we exist as an organisation. Getting to know better what everyone at Global Generation is doing is truly inspirational.
We encourage young people and our staff team to work with the inner and outer dimensions of life; identifying themselves with nature, community and as global citizens. This year we have particularly focussed on our internal well being. This means we are better equipped to support others around us on that journey too, as well as each other through the challenging moments. This feels ever more important in the growing environmental, political and economic climate but, I feel, puts us in a strong position to collectively work towards positive change.”
— Martina Mina
The move of the Paper Garden
The other big move has been the move of the Paper Garden to a new location in Canada Water. The Paper Garden team have remained committed to delivering all of our primary school work, community growing training, and youth programmes through the challenges of moving a site, which have included unstable and temporary electrics, water suddenly switched off, no heated indoor space, no toilets, a constant focus on moving structures around, and not to mention trying to build the biggest cordwood wall in the UK, as part of the new classroom building. Luckily Glen and the ‘Glenettes’, a steady group of 10-15 young people, came to the rescue to finish building the wall, whose last logs went in at the end of November. The team here have truly embodied values of adaptability, resilience and collaboration. Emma, Paper Garden Manager, has written about how shared lunches have played a key part in staying together through this time.
The launch of the FLOATING Garden
The Floating Garden, a wide beam barge, is now moored on the canal opposite Granary Square, in the centre of King’s Cross. This has been 4 years in the making, ever since our move from our last Skip Garden on the KX Estate. Through a co-design and co-build process with local young people, the Floating Garden is a new community space, bringing together neighbouring communities. Laura Price, who was first involved with Global Generation as an intern, then joined the team, has this year stepped into the role of “Barge Mama”.
Through our Voices of the Water project we have been exploring the personal, cultural, scientific and mythical aspects of water with a particular focus on the healing power of water for people and planet, travelling with an inquiry question around the meaning of water in our climate changed world. Being on the water is providing us with an opportunity to engage people in reflecting on the history of these particular waters: the canal system that was built on top of the hidden river Fleet that flows underneath; exploring hidden rivers, hidden stories, hidden histories as a result and empowering those less heard voices to come to the surface. You can read more about Laura’s experience of growing the barge here.
Coming together
Though each of these moves, changes and new beginnings have had many challenges, I feel that we have navigated them fluidly through coming together as a team and through the generous support of our Board of Trustees who have been there for us both emotionally and practically every step of the way. It has felt more important than ever to put emphasis on creating both informal and formal support structures, focusing on the wellbeing of all, so that we can all be the best of ourselves in the work that we do.
Some of the ways we have done this is by eating together, games and singing together, exploring topical issues and training together; through our monthly group gatherings, away days, and summer and winter residentials. We welcome these winter months, in which we aim to follow the patterns and rhythms of nature, to pause as the garden pauses and come together around a fire to reflect and plan, ready for the busyness of spring.
“I have most enjoyed meeting new people who have joined the team and getting to know people better”
— Karari, Garden Assistant
“My highlight from 2022 has been to be in the garden on sunny days surrounded by lovely plants and people”
— Sue Amos, Head of Gardens
“I have really appreciated the solidness of the team, the consistency, spending time together and the away days”
— Charlotte, Community and Education Gardener
Community events
This is when the gardens come to life, what the gardens are made for, and what was most missed during the lockdown. It has been such a joy to be able to host community events again. At the Paper Garden, though the site was unfinished and part construction site, members of the local community came together to celebrate its new chapter in October half term, with young people hosting the event, pizzas from the new pizza oven, African drumming, green woodworking and an opportunity to help build the cordwood wall.
At the Story Garden we celebrated Eid in May bringing people together to celebrate, cook and eat a shared meal. We held Story Garden’s 3 year birthday party in July with 1,000 people coming through the gates to play games, garden and make, eat pizzas and find out about other amazing local organisations.
In the summer holidays we ran a 4 week Holiday Club supporting children and young people to connect to themselves, each other and nature through exploring their creativity, the garden and other local spaces such as Camley Street Nature Reserve, Somers Town History Museum and further afield to visit the Millenium Seed Bank. Lucy (Young Fellow) tells her story of the Holiday Club here.
In July we also brought a piece of the Story Garden to Hampton Court Flower Show. Our garden was created together with a group of Somers Town community growers and we attended the show with a group of residents. Check us out here on Gardeners World (about 30 mins in).
We hosted part of the Day of the Dead Somers Town Festival, organised by local resident Javier, which is gaining more and more momentum year on year, with live music, parades, face painting and the beautiful altar created by local art teacher Annabel, in our polytunnel inspired by the bravery and courage of enslaved West African women transporting seeds in their hair during the transatlantic slave trade as means of survival of themselves and their culture.
We held a space for Afghan refugee women and Jewish women from a nearby synagogue to bake bread together and make new connections and friendships, which will become a regular event. In the last few days of the year we held our Youth Winter Market, where young people and families throughout our programmes sold handmade gifts, and our Winter Solstice Event on Wed 21 December to mark the shortest day of the year and celebrate the return of the light with a campfire and toasting marshmallows, hot drinks, seasonal food growing activities and storytelling for children.
Our work with young people
Young people continue to be at the heart of our work across our sites. We’ve ended this year by running 4 Nature Connect Days at Story Garden in partnership with Bertha Earth. 120 Yr 7 students entered the garden to slow down and nourish themselves on their journey to become Ambassadors, through practical and reflective experiences around wood, food, plants and textile. The words we used as the start of each day to inspire them on their journey came from civil rights activist Howard Thurman:
Don't ask what the world needs.
Ask what makes you come alive.
Because what the world needs is people that are alive.
At the end of each day, young people wrote a letter to Taniwha the River Fleet dragon sharing what they learned from the story and the day.
Dear Taniwha, today you have taught me to respect and cherish moments. You made me feel calm as if all my problems have flown away. I learnt things I didn’t know before and possibly opened up a new hobby. You have given me laughs and smiles.
Thank you for letting me cherish this day and enjoy the here and now.
Thank you,
Olivia
Local young people through our Friday Night Out cooking project were on French TV this summer, sharing their seed to plate journey in the middle of London to a French audience.
“Being in the story garden made me feel happy and made me feel I belong. A place where I can spend my evening after school and at weekends and most importantly a place where I can have fun!”
— Leonardo
Generators have been leading on the co-build of the barge, exploring water stories, writing poems, creating ceramic pieces, paintings and bug hotels based on the designs made by young people the year before, as well as make a stop start animation.
Since September a new group has started by exploring leadership as responsible stewardship toward all ecological communities and celebrating nature in different ways and particularly through the importance of making with our ‘thinking hands’.
“Making things with my hands made me feel very happy and calm. Touching the materials created a connection with nature and the earth. Making gifts with my hands made me realise that I have the power in me to create things rather than buying them.”
— Lily
At Paper Garden, alongside running an increasingly popular Generator programme, we also started the Green Ambassador programme for the first time this year with Malaika and Kwesia a.k.a. City Girl in Nature, as a progression route for Generators.
In February, the Green Ambassadors came together to make lanterns in the old Paper Garden for the Rotherhithe lantern procession that took place on March 4th, 2022. The Green Ambassadors ran social action projects in their local area by creating the Alphabet Garden & Creative Space with Oopsy Daisy Nursery and Silwood Youth Club on the Silwood Estate where a few of the Green Ambassadors also live.
They also took part in building the Paper Garden pizza oven, designing a seating area for outside of the classroom once it is built, and a consultation to influence the design of the Canada Water Park with Townshend Landscape Architects.
Looking ahead to 2023
Looking ahead at the next year I am particularly looking forward to settling down in our new Paper Garden site, with the classroom finished in the spring and to have a big community party to celebrate the opening of the garden to the public.
Young people will continue to be at the heart of all we do, as they will take a lead in creating the new classroom space at Paper Garden as well as the Floating Garden.
Resident-led community gardening will continue to grow as we ensure that the benefits of growing food and connections go beyond the boundaries of our gardens and into the local estates, schools and public realm.
We will continue to mark the year and the seasons with celebrations across both gardens as a way to value and be grateful for the people we work with, the communities we work in and the abundant natural world around us.
Watch this space for our first event of the year, our Seed swapping day, at Story Garden on Saturday 25 February, to welcome in the longer days once more.
“When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.”
— Wendell Berry - THE PEACE OF WILD THINGS
Notes from the Garden
A puncture is not how I envisioned starting the day, no one ever does. They always seem to happen when you’re in a rush, people are expecting you, and the weather is particularly…challenging.