On a lovely sunny evening on June 30th 2016 more than 100 people gathered for the Growing Localities Awards Ceremony in the beautiful Victorian conservatory at the fascinating Horniman Museum in South London. People came from nature projects all around London, staff, board members and service users. Children from schools were there, as well as people who had been refugees or homeless. They all had one thing in common: a shared enthusiasm and commitment for the benefits of working with and in nature for building wellbeing - particularly for people, whether children or adults, who are excluded or alienated from mainstream society by economic or other circumstances.
2016 was the fourth year of the City of London’s Growing Localities Awards. Initially, not knowing what to expect, over those years we have received many hundreds of fascinating entries from passionate, committed community groups, often working with very limited financial resources, but with boundless enthusiasm. It is clear that the benefits of nature for wellbeing, particularly for those worst off or most excluded in our capital city are now widely acknowledged and enthusiastically practiced by ever-growing numbers of citizens. The days of small groups of neighbours working together voluntarily to recover an unsightly piece of local waste land was only the beginning of what is now an enormous movement in London and in cities across the world.
Each year the Growing Localities Awards have attracted a wealth of new ideas, taking the levels of creativity and innovation to ever greater heights, as well as reaching larger and larger numbers of people. This year was a real highlight for creativity and innovation, including for example school children making musical instruments from plants they had grown; drinks made with foraged ingredients and unique natural cosmetics made by people with learning disabilities.
The commitment to helping those most excluded is also a notable feature of this year’s entries. We have had entries from groups working with prisoners, people with mental health problems, homeless people, adults with learning disabilities and refugees, asylum seekers and survivors of conflict and torture.
The Growing Localities Awards are not for recognising large, well-established, well-funded agencies working with nature. Our focus is on new ideas, practiced with limited resources, great enthusiasm and a passionate commitment to giving people who have not had the best of life chances a greater sense of wellbeing through nature. In that context, it could hardly be more appropriate that with everything that is going on in our dangerous, uncertain world, that the winner of the 2016 Growing Localities Awards was SLAM NHS Trust for their work with refugees, people who have survived torture and people with post-traumatic stress at Loughborough City Farm.
We want to congratulate them and thank them for their inspiration, commitment and irrepressible optimism in the face of the great adversity they have been through.
Silver: For members who have submitted an example or entered an awards programme
Gold: For members who have been a speaker at an event or have won or been shortlisted for an award.
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