Mud Island Community Garden, well-established for many years, have won numerous awards for their great community work. In spring 2023, they offered their garden to refugees who were being housed at the East Wall refugee centre, providing a place for people to learn and meet local people.
GreenFriends Ireland partnered with this initiative, offering our GetGrowing course (as usual free of charge) as a training platform to help refugees practise and improve their English through learning about gardening, while also offering an opportunity to begin integrating with the local community. Rob and Birgitta ran the 8-week course weekly in May and June 2023, co-teaching a mixed group of local gardeners and refugees. As many refugees did not have fluent English, Rob and Birgitta simplified and adapted the course so that it could work well as a means to build community connections while learning a little English and exploring vegetable gardening.
We had 25 lively, engaged participants, of whom 20 successfully completed the course, receiving certificates in July 2023. We were particularly happy that two of the main Mud Island organisers also attended, with a view to becoming GetGrowing teachers themselves in 2024.
