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Hammersmith Community Gardens Association

hammersmith community gardens association

London

Hammersmith Community Gardens Association is a local environmental charity set up in 1984. We manage four community gardens in Hammersmith and Fulham. HCGA has a range of projects which include conservation training schemes, volunteer gardening sessions, health and wellbeing projects, environmental playschemes and environmental education in local schools. We assist local groups in the design, plan and management of their green spaces. We promote environmental sustainability within the borough and manage our sites to maximise biodiversity and encourage wildlife. To reflect the expansion of our working to neighbouring boroughs in 2016 the charity adopted the working name of Healthy Community Gardening Activities (HCGA) The gardens are used as an educational resource by local schools, a site for volunteer gardening groups and in the holidays there are environmental play activities. As well as creating space for people the sites have also been designed to encourage wildlife. We run the community food growing area in Normand Park and work with local ‘Friends of’ groups to manage and promote their sites. In Westminster we run weekly gardening sessions in Queens Park Gardens, Westbourne Park and Penfold Street Hub. We support the Fisherton growing project with regular gardening sessions as well as by providing plants. In Westminster and The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea we deliver short Adult Education courses around gardening and herbal activities as well as a programme of walks. HCGA has a team of school gardeners who deliver environmental education sessions in schools on a weekly basis in three boroughs. These include formal curriculum-linked activities as well as lunchtime and after school clubs. We can also guide groups on how to make their premises more environmentally friendly and give technical growing advice. For more information about booking an educational visit for your group or for a member of our team to come to your site please contact us. Through the Grow Well project we work with local people across the Hammersmith and Fulham borough to provide therapeutic gardening sessions for people who need a bit of extra support hopefully leading to participation in our regular volunteering sessions. The Get Out There! project offers local unemployed or socially isolated people the opportunity to learn new skills in basic environmental management such as habitat conservation, tool use and wildlife identification. Participants get the opportunity to visit and work on a range of different habitats across London as well as local sites in Hammersmith and Fulham. We also run a Men in Sheds programme at Godolphin Gardens for socially-isolated men. Our Volunteers maintain our gardens and contribute hundreds of hours of their time each year. Many of them have physical or mental health problems which prevent them from working in paid employment. We also host around 20 companies each year on corporate volunteering work days. As well as completing several physical tasks the companies make a donation to HCGA which covers staff time and materials. This is extremely valuable to us as it then funds the upkeep of the gardens.

M7e Community Interest Company

m7e community interest company

As of 2018, 13.7% of primary school children attending state schools are eligible for free school meals. In sponsored academies this rises to 21.3%. According to school leaders, the financial support of pupil premium (PP) has replaced other revenues of funding, with the schools becoming increasingly stretched with its resources. An Ofsted survey into PP funding found only a third of the revenue was being used to help subsidise educational trips despite the benefits being huge for the children. M7 Education CIC tackles the problems of funding by providing free school trips to PP children and their classes. One stumbling block for teachers has been finding the extra time organising these trips. M7 Education CIC also removes this barrier by organising these trips on behalf of the teachers. We will also provide lesson plans and ideas for teachers to use based around the educational trip. This will allow schools to allocate PP funding towards other educational purposes. Furthermore, it will help teachers to allocate their time into creating thoroughly engaging lessons. What is different about our approach? M7 Education CIC provides a holistic approach to the issue of educational experiences. Not only will the trip be paid for, but the teachers will receive support and documents to minimise the planning needed for each trip. Lesson ideas will be sent to teachers as well as example lessons for free. Each experience will be related to the curriculum that the class will be learning either at the time or the term following the trip. This level of experiential learning has been shown to have great benefits for the children and the approach M7 Education takes in order maximise learning is what separates our approach.