A LOCAL community garden is inviting members of the public to pick their own fruit and vegetables during the month of August.
Located at the allotments beside Whiterock Leisure Centre, the 'People's Garden' (Gairdín an Phobail) is encouraging visitors to pick their produce and, where possible, to leave a donation to help homeless families who are campaigning against housing inequality in the city.
The project – which is a collaboration between Springhill Community House, Anaka Womens Group, GROW, Bleach Green residents, Glór Na Móna and PPR – is promoting an ethos of self-help and mutual aid. Every Friday in August at 10am, members of the public can visit and pick their own fruit and veg.
Ciarán Cahill from Springhill Community House, explained: "It was always our wish that whatever surplus that was produced within the garden would help to feed families that were struggling.
"Whatever is produced in the community garden is going to be available for people to buy, on a donation basis, and that donation will be given to PPR to combat homelessness."
As well as combatting homelessness and food poverty, every Friday this month Gairdín an Phobail host members of the 123GP campaign who will share poetry and other literature to help those struggling with mental ill-health.
Sara Boyce, from PPR and the 123GP campaign, said: “Activists in the 123GP campaign are delighted to see Gairdín an Phobail getting off the ground.
"The pandemic is having a significant impact on people’s mental health, across all communities. For an area like West Belfast however, these impacts will be layered on top of significant, pre-existing levels of health inequalities and deprivation.
"Inequalities in access to vital mental health services such as counselling means that people cannot access support when they need it. In the face of these failures by the state, communities have come together to see what they can do to support themselves and each other.
"Empowerment through nature and through language are two of these community-based responses.The healing power of nature is well-known. So too is the healing power of words.
"Over the past year 123GP activists and others have participated in a transformative storytelling programme ‘The Rest of the Story’ with Boston-based writer and activist Michael Patrick MacDonald.
"Others have participated in Scríbhneoirí an tSléibhe community writing programme with Glór na Mona, facilitated by Belfast poet Scott McKendry.
"Participants from these programmes have chosen poems and quotes that constitute, in the words of the Nobel prizewinner, the Greek poet George Seferis, a poetry 'strong enough to help'. These healing words will be shared in Gairdín an Phobail every Friday during August. People are invited to take some words and bring some of their own healing words to share."
