Aviva Community Fund provided £329 of match funding
Ahimsa Permaculture Garden Poly Tunnel
Rossendale, England, United Kingdom
Aim
To grow vegetables on a 26 acre farm site using Ahimsa philosophy, Permaculture design principles and Edible forest techniques.
Help us provide support to Children and Young People living on the margins of society who are struggling with their mental health.
We are a Social farm, Social Farming ('SF') is the practice of offering family farms and smallholdings as a form of social service. The farm remains a typical working farm where people in need of support can benefit from participation in the farm's activities. In the past 12 years we have renovated an old stone barn, built a new purpose built barn for our rescued sanctuary animals, a garden office for our charity admin work, created paddocks and grazing areas for our rescued animals, planted 10,000 trees and completed lots of other smaller projects to improve the area. Our site is of mixed use with 13 acres set aside for environmental projects, and the the other 13 acres for animal welfare.
We are now in the process of renovating a large rural pond and building a permaculture market garden (Ahimsa Pond and Ahimsa permaculture Market garden) and exploring edible forest techniques and new ways of working . All our projects are aimed at providing Children and Young People living on the margins of society who are struggling with their mental health, a safe space to use nature to promote therapy, rehabilitation, social inclusion, education and social services.
For children and Young people living in flats, high rises or terraced housing. Growing food in the countryside and spending time with rescued sanctuary animals is an invaluable opportunity. Recharging their mental and emotional batteries in a completely different way.
Spending time with animals helps children and young people be responsible, caring and loving. Animals are great teachers. The therapeutic value of being out doors and therapeutic horticulture is vast and all points to healing of mind, body and spirit. Its a great way for them to spend their day and help with the stresses and strains of their life. Every one needs a little help with mental health sometimes; some more than others. We are working with the ADHD network to make our site more user friendly in its design, which is an exciting partnership.
Our project is simple; lets build a poly tunnel to grow food on a rural farm for children and young people. Let's help Children and Young people on the margins of society who need a little bit of extra support. We work with all sorts of people from a variety of backgrounds. We know that just being in nature is a great healer for everyone; especially people who do not have access to land based projects. People love being around the farm and just getting stuck in with whats going on on that particular day. A poly tunnel will give us another string to our bow and provide us with under cover growing space to extend our growing season. This space can also double as a teaching room for the children when needed.
We have a steady stream of volunteers and support locally. We have the support of several businesses who donate surplus building materials. We are members of Vegan Organic Network, ADHD network, Heads Together, Young Minds, and BME Lancashire.
This project successfully funded on 20th April 2021