Common Ground is our flagship organic food growing community project working in partnership with refugees and migrants.
Our aims are:
- To offer a safe welcoming space to the refugee and migrant community
- To reconnect people to our food, our ecosystem and each other
- To teach people land based skills especially organic food growing
- To give people the opportunity to share their skills and stories
- To enjoy sowing, growing, preparing, cooking and eating good food together
The current refugee crisis has left hundreds of people displaced without a connection to home, or familiar ground. We are offering a friendly, relaxing space for food growing, cooking and sharing. Sessions will follow a semi-structured programme, with tasks and activities relevant to the changing seasons the natural calendar and the interests and passions of our participants.
Who we work with
We partner with local refugee charity, Voices in Exile, who help the group navigate to the site and act as faciliators and translators for the sessions. Once familiar with the project participants can join us on any subsequent volunteer days we host as part of our food growing community.
Local volunteers assist us in our work and it is a chance to for everone to make new friends and share their stories.
What our participants say
“I’m really happy to have met you and your team. I’m really grateful because I have learnt from you lots of things. One of them how to make friends with people. Everyone there was friendly and helpful. Another thing I learned was how to feel comfortable handling plants. Thank you for make me feel so welcome”
“Please send thanks to all your team for the brilliant variety and quality of veg you grow and bring to us. I’ve said this before but it really does make a massive difference to the parcels we can offer our clients. Activities like the ones you offer work well on so many levels and our clients, many of whom have been through quite a lot, felt so welcome and able to relax and enjoy themselves. So, thank you” – Voices in Exile
“Thank you so much for the time we spent together. I really enjoyed and learned how to take care of plants, also the delicious recipes we shared with each other. Thank you for touching my life in ways that you may never know”