BEING A GENERATOR AND WEX STUDENT AT PAPER GARDEN

Rhaina Marshall, 18 years old, reflects on her work experience placement with Global Generation: 

You may ask- what does Global Generation do for the community? Or perhaps some are asking: what is the Paper Garden? These are questions I believe are essential to answer when discussing my own experiences as a Generator and as a student completing their work experience with Global Generation, because I have seen how important  they are for the community. 

One of my favourite activities that I took part in as a Generator included a focus on  environmentally friendly cooking. As Global Generation is a charity that encourages healthy and sustainably-minded choices when cooking and eating, we made pizzas using vegetables and herbs from the garden. This was a really fun activity as not only did we do the cooking outside, but using actual vegetables from the garden showed us the importance of growing your own produce, how to use different plants from the garden and tips for cooking in general. Personally I believe this was a great activity considering the waste culture of today- where people may buy a bag of spinach from the shops and perhaps throw it away as it goes off before using it (leading to alarming facts such as 6.7 million tonnes of food being wasted every year in the uk alone). This is a particularly disheartening fact but both the Paper Garden and Story Garden show that by growing our own vegetables we can tackle this issue. As a young person, I think being part of the Generator Programme at the Paper Garden encourages us to have gardens and grow our own food, as we are taught the importance of nurturing and caring for the environment and gardens. During my work experience at the Paper Garden we often cooked at lunch times, making use of what was in the garden and the kitchen as opposed to just going to get a meal deal from Tesco. The meals were vegan friendly and all delicious - we made a vegetable curry, noodles and vegetables and even smoothies, having a different delicious meal every day. This was important as it discouraged waste and despite it being proven veganism helps the environment (or perhaps not eating meat almost every day even) some people are reluctant because they believe such a lifestyle may limit the delicious food they can make, or think there's not a range of foods and all the foods are the same. After this work experience I can confidently say this is not the case!

As a Generator at the Paper Garden, we all meet every week to engage in discussions on the environment (even having an opportunity to write to COPT26), discuss what we as young people want to see in our environment, decorate images and write poems to be placed on the local skips filled with plants and so much more! I helped make benches to be placed in the community.  We used trees that had fallen down and shaved and carved them into animals. Eventually people in the community will actually be able to use these benches to sit on, allowing the green space to be used effectively and comfortably. Because I am a Generator I know the importance of using and spending time in green spaces, and avoiding them being further industrialised.

In addition to this, during my work experience placement we maintained the skip planters. The skips have been reused as giant plant pots, providing space for more plants in the community. On the visit to the skips we took lots of water to water these plants. Honestly it just shows how much hard work and effort the people at the Paper Gardens put into maintaining and looking after the environment - beyond just inside the Paper Garden. We also went to the Dock Office, where people at the Paper Garden had planted plants. There are a lot medicinal plants here and edible plants, all open to the community. I actually tried some of the berries here - they were really nice and I had interestingly never tried them before, but now i definitely want more. Personally I believe it's really amazing Global Generation puts so much into the community and opens people up to new tastes. These planters have been commissions by local developer British Land, which enables the involvement of the local community in the planting plan of the public realm. Watering these plants was really hard work as we had to use a wheelbarrow to get the water all the way to Canada Water station, but it was a great experience.

Although I have been a Generator for less than a year, and only did a week of work experience, it is obvious the amount the Paper Garden puts into the community and just how much they care about what they do. They spread awareness on the environment to people, actively look after the environment, give opportunities to young people (they work with schools, and hold weekly clubs for young people) and do so much more than even I could realise in a week. So if you're still asking: what is Global Generation? It is a charity that cares for the environment, that puts a lot of hard work into the community and has taught me (and other young people) a lot.

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Notes from the Garden