When we think of community spaces we often think rooms and halls but more and more people are turning to nature to make their connections with each other and the living world. Join us to hear two different approaches, both creating opportunities for people to come together and learn from each other. Karin Eyben, from Garvagh Forest School, and Jennifer-Anne Smith, from Buile Hill Mansion Association, will share just a little of what’s going on in their neck of the woods and what they are discovering when using nature as a community space.
Jennifer-Anne Smith is Director of Manchester-based charity Love Withington Baths, working on a large National Heritage Lottery project. She lives in Salford and volunteers locally as Chair of the Buile Hill Mansion Association, a group working alongside Salford City Council to re-open the Buile Hill Mansion by 2024, the projects all have community, heritage and nature elements. Recent development includes a wooden sculpture trail around the park, creating seating and a relaxation area incorporating a felled Elm Tree, and bringing to life a sensory garden. Jenni and two others founded Salford Mutual Aid Coalition and she is part of the group who launched Salford’s first Care leavers Christmas Dinner last year through Lemn Sissay’s Gold from the Stone foundation.
Karin Eyben coordinates the Garvagh Preople’s Forest Project in Co Derry, Northern Ireland. The project has been about noticing, valuing and growing the connections people in the catchment communities have with their Forest. A Healthy Forest = Healthy Communities. The project has experimented with a number of different areas of practice including learning, playing, wellbeing and imagination with the forest as a space to reimagine ourselves, our relationships with each other and the rest of the natural world.
Stories from the Stage is your opportunity to hear from brilliant projects and inspirational individuals making positive things happen where they live.
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