Powis Residents Group

Residents gardening for wellbeing, food, wildlife, biodiversity, pollinators, community, kids, sensory impact and beauty. Combatting climate change by putting carbon back into the earth and increasing sustainability by reducing food waste and growing food locally.

In 2019, Powis Residents Group won the 'Young People Discretionary Award': This is a unique community, where the environment, culture and outdoor shared space has been transformed. This has been achieved in a truly organic way, and a way which reflects the wishes and ideas of the whole community and where children are valued and involved as much as the adults. Young people are at the heart of everything in this residential community, they mow the grass, pick the crops, and select what plants to grow as well as being involved in litter picks. They are welcomed into the permaculture forest allotment where they learn about ‘garden to plate’ in a very real way, and a way which engages their interest and learning. The many children in the community followed the judges throughout the tour, keen to chat and show things they had created or grown. Through the children it has been possible to engage with and involve ‘harder to reach’ adults, for example, some of the men and the women from different ethnic backgrounds. In return the children and young people enjoy safe and friendly spaces to play and to congregate. Young people learn in an informal way about horticulture, about wildlife and about biodiversity. So much enthusiasm has been generated that the school, St Machar Academy, is considering the development of a foundation apprenticeship in horticulture. Powis Residents are not only cultivating flowers and crops but also a healthy community where things are shared, people are respected and there is a responsible approach to the environment, both on a very local level and also in the broadest global sense.