7 minute read
Engaging communities ‘beyond the garden walls’
Engaging communities ‘beyond the garden walls’
The Community Greening Team, Botanic Gardens of Sydney
The Botanic Gardens of Sydney (BGoS) has an outreach education program called Community Greening. Since 2000 we have been engaging communities that otherwise could not access the education, horticulture and science on offer within our botanic gardens.
Over the last 23 years, the program has grown to employ 10 staff. Several programs delivered under the Community Greening banner have evolved to include themes of supporting youth, fire and flood recovery, as well as more formal adult education programs. We use community development techniques with a people focus and everything we do is place-based. Programs are co-designed and created with the community to empower and support their self-identified needs to ‘get growing’. We work in sites all over NSW and it sometimes takes two days to travel to the communities we support.
In this article, three of our team share their stories of working outside the garden walls with different communities in NSW.
Southern NSW and the Sowing Seeds of Hope program
Darren Martin, Community Greening Officer
In 2019/2020 much of the east coast of NSW was ravaged by horrific bushfires. The loss of human life and homes, millions of hectares of land and billions of animals, including rare and threatened species, left a wound that wouldn’t be healed quickly.
Understanding the importance of building community, creating spaces to heal, and food security, Community Greening was there to lend a hand. We aptly called the program Sowing Seeds of Hope, as we set out to create opportunities for a brighter tomorrow.
From fire-wise garden designs to Yarning Circles, and wicking beds to food forests, all groups that reached out were supported.
Preschool children built bird nesting material dispensers, lizard lounges and planted habitat gardens. Opportunities for high school students to engage in meaningful hands-on horticultural activities created purpose and direction. Our senior citizens rediscovered the joy of putting their hands in the earth and growing nutrient-dense, chemical-free food in their new raised garden beds.
Community engagement in schools on the Sapphire Coast
Cliodhna Maguire, First Nations Youth Community Greening Officer
They don’t just call it the Sapphire Coast for its saltwater serenity − the community is nestled among mountains like a gemstone in the earth. Every time I hit the road − van full of plants and spilling with soil − and glide on down to the south coast, I feel like I’m heading home. NaroomaBermagui-Bega, all sandwiched between beautiful beaches, are just a handful of communities full to the brim with people dedicated to Country where they care in their own unique ways. The Youth Community Greening team has been working alongside youth, especially Aboriginal youth, in primary and secondary schools on the south coast for a few years now and each project demonstrates the eclectic reality of small-town living. These kids spend days exploring coastal landscapes and bush wonderlands. Within the school sphere they are supported by teachers and community members invested in enriching their worlds. Whether they are disengaged, disadvantaged or needing new and diverse ways of learning, the community of support that our team is a part of is truly enabling a new generation of learners fuelled with a love for nature, culture and community.
I have been involved with three projects on the south coast, which are described below.
The Narooma High School ‘Nurseries and Nets’ project: a school embarking on their very own home-grown nursery put together by none other than some dedicated students and passionate teachers. The nursery supports endemic native plants, edible and medicinal indigenous resources and kinaesthetic (hands-on) education. When they aren’t building this nursery enterprise, they’re putting their basketball skills to the test in the nets! This fantastic group and the Youth Community Greening team have walked Country, learned and laughed together. They have become ‘greener on the outside’ with a new Community Greening program aimed at supporting disengaged youth by establishing a project that enriches a natural space and cultural education at school, and hopefully the students themselves.
Bermagui Public School ‘Culture Continued’ project: a school embodying a holistic approach to community, culture and care. I would like to introduce Bermagui’s kick-ass Aboriginal Education Officer, who is dedicated to supporting Aboriginal youth to care for each other and the land while attending school. Our team has been welcomed into their bustling space to share knowledge and passion together. While planting local native resource plants, we learned about these kids’ connections to their community and their aspirations for the future. There is something always so special about storytelling and tending to the land.
Bega Primary and High School ‘The Eternal Yarn’ project: this school community is one I hold very close to my heart. Days have been spent yarning up a storm, tending to gardens and dreaming about big ideas. From the very beginning, both schools had teachers and students alike express deep interest in continuing culture and caring for the land. Their yarning spaces are evolving from sandstone seats to a plant oasis, with the foundation for more. Our team and each school have been passionately contributing to new garden spaces, new ways to celebrate native biodiversity and ways to share culture. The yarn will be forever eternal between these sister schools as kids grow from primary to high school supported by sensational role models.
Our team and each school have been passionately contributing to new garden spaces, new ways to celebrate native biodiversity and ways to share culture.
Supporting remote communities in Western NSW
Paddie Lane, Community Greening Officer
In 2019 Community Greening visited the small town of Wilcannia in the far west of NSW. We met with the local community and elders who explained their issues relating to accessing fresh food. Food security is an important role of Community Greening, and we recognised that Wilcannia was one of the least foodsecure communities we had worked with. Since then, we have run short courses and delivered programs to Menindee and Bourke, setting up new gardens and maintaining existing ones, engaging and capacitybuilding personal skills relating to social cohesion and food security.
As these communities are quite remote and difficult to access regularly, we have developed an online community. Here, predominantly First Nations communities share information on local species, plant behaviours and occurrences, particularly post-drought and post-flood, sometimes noticing plants that have not been seen for many years.
The main aim is to co-design and develop gardens with and for each community, within walking distance of major urban areas. Community will then be able to grow nutrient-dense food and cultural plants to share with their families and elders and communicate appropriate knowledge to neighbouring communities.
It is a privilege to work with these communities, which are connected by the great Barka/Murray Darling River and to support their efforts in restoring its health and the health of the broader communities who share its banks.
To learn more or utilise some of our resources, check out this set of guides and activities for working with Community: Education programs at Royal Botanic Garden Sydney - The Royal Botanic Garden Sydney (nsw.gov.au)
