Stories From the garden
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.
Stories of place
By the bright yellow gate of the Story Garden, apples and quinces hang from the young trees beyond their harvesting month, still in half-way-home soil bags. Other young trees rustle their remaining leaves within embracing crescents, nourished by the stories that feed them, encircling a story-telling fire drum where I sit with one family of newly arrived Afghan refugees - invited to this space from nearby half-way temporary hotels.
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.
LAUNCHING FILMS FOR THE LISTENING SPACE
Lucy Shiekh has been involved in Global Generation for over five years, first as a Generator (youth social activist), then as a Voices of the Earth Fellow. Her latest role as a community action researcher has been made possible thanks to a pioneering partnership with Dr Jane Myat and her colleagues involved in ‘The Listening Space’ an organic garden and associated activities, that sit in and around The Caversham Group Practice in Kentish Town. Financial support for Global Generation’s Action Research involvement with the Listening Space, came from UCL Partners. This is what Lucy has to say about her experience.
A YEAR OF CONCENTRIC CHANGES: HOW YOUNG PEOPLE HAD AN IMPACT ON ME, THE LOCAL COMMUNITY, THE CLIMATE, AND THEMSELVES
I think about the discussion we had online and now I ask myself what would I select for a golden record that portrays the journey of the Story Garden’s youth groups? What feelings, challenges and learnings would they want to speak about?
Reflecting on the transition from participant to facilitator
I am Abena and as of a few weeks ago I have just begun my journey as an Assistant Youth Proects Coordinator.
BUILDING A PAPER GARDEN (PART 2)
For many years now, I have said that Global Generation has thrived in the slipstream of other people’s waste. Thanks to forward thinking property developers like British Land and Argent, we have been able to locate our community projects inside and adjacent to large scale construction projects. Inhabiting spaces that are usually out of bounds for community groups, means we are well placed to establish a circular culture which many in the construction world refer to as a circular economy.
A SPACE THAT NEVER LEAVES YOU
First impressions are something that always stick with you. I was first introduced to the Listening Space garden in the heart of the Caversham GP practice, during the first lockdown in 2020. It was a sunny day in the middle of spring where everything was in its peak of bloom.
Voices of the universe
Much of what I have brought to Global Generation’s work in London has roots in the group of islands 18,300 km across the seas that form Aotearoa New Zealand; the land where I was born. The Covid pandemic meant that what might have been a brief trip for me and my husband, Rod Sugden, to visit my 95-year-old mother turned into a five-month stay.
PASSING THE BATON
It’s early evening and I am sitting by the door in the Story Garden classroom as I listen to the words; “feel your feet on the ground, feel your breath, find a way to sit very still.” I feel my heart pounding and I focus on the words, my body, the feeling in the room. As the simple and gentle instructions keep coming, the room drops into a shared space of silence and I relax.
A seat at the table
We often think of the Summer Solstice as a peak, climactic moment to sum up the best times of our year and a sign to renew our energy for the rest of the year. What if it’s more than that?
Making the new paper garden (part 1)
“To re-inhabit the places in which we live is not to raze the smokestacks and freeways that we might find there but to fit them back into the larger unfolding of land and cosmos.”
— Freya Mathews