Viva Brighton Issue #65 July 2018

MY SPACE
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Garden volunteer Will Harmer
with tadpoles, the wooded hills of Bevendean in
the distance. It’s an unexpectedly bucolic scene.
The garden welcomes up to 30 volunteers on
Tuesdays and Fridays and offers sessions to
children from local schools, groups of young
carers, and to more than a dozen disability
charities. Most of what they produce gets cooked
on site, but the surplus is given to the volunteers
or taken to the kitchen of nearby community pub,
The Bevy (another of Warren’s projects), where
it’s prepped and cooked by students from St John’s
College for the ‘Friday Friends’ lunch club.
Funding is tight, with many school groups
unable to access the project due to budget cuts,
but still the referrals keep coming. “We get a lot
of requests from social services,” says Warren.
“Because we’re well known and trusted in the local
community, we can pick up kids who have fallen
through the gaps. We can offer qualifications for
kids that really struggle at school. It’s really hands
on stuff. It would reach any kid.”
Moulsecoomb Primary and Brighton Aldridge
Community Academy regularly work with the
team, both at the garden and on campus. “We
had one lad who was on the edge of exclusion. At
the age of 13 they had wanted to get rid of him
because his behaviour was so bad. He worked
extensively with Pat and became the Head’s star
pupil and went on to get seven GCSEs.”
“It’s not the kids that are wrong, it’s the education
system. It doesn’t value hands-on work. Let’s
do things differently. A kid may find maths
complicated, but they can still learn the offside
rule. If they are engaged, they learn. So, let’s
do what we can to engage them. This is still a
classroom, it just hasn’t got a roof.”
Lizzie Lower
See the garden for yourself at their open day on
Friday 20th of July from noon till 7pm.
moulsecoombforestgarden.org
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