Youth workshop (16-25) with the Bloom Collective

Following from our successful pilot session with Lola Olufemi, we are back with MayDay Rooms to bring you another archival collaboration with The Bloom Collective!

Join nature practitioners Ali and Idman from the Bloom Collective in a two-hour workshop exploring the elements, senses and our relationships to the natural world. Through grounding practices, creative crafting, storytelling and collective reflection. They will be taking inspiration from iniva and MDR archives to encourage participants to respond to the question – how can the land help us create a sense of belonging?

These workshops are intended for young people (16-25) from marginalised backgrounds, i.e. Black, QTI/people of the majority, working class, migrant, disabled.

Facilitators

The Bloom Collective is an iteration of the Bloom 2020 / 2021 nature programme which was a series of online and in-person events and workshops platforming the skills and expertise of Black women and femmes. Through sessions focusing on herbal remedies, natural dyeing, embodied movement practice, food justice, ancestral connection and play, Black and POC from London and beyond came together to connect with ourselves, each other and the natural world in community. Bloom is now an emergent black-led nature collective consisting of landworkers, artists, healers, community builders and dreamers based in London.

List of resources and garden spaces

Books

Black Rice – Judith Ann Carney
Farming While Black – Leah Penniman
Healing Wisdom of Africa – Malidoma Patrice Some

Garden projects in East London

Tower Hamlets Cemetery
Hackney City Farm
Community Apothecary (East and North London)

North London

GoGrowWithLove, black female-led growing spaces
Wolves Lane Centre plant nursery, garden center and horticulture education hub
Harlesden Town Garden

West London

Josiah Braithwaite Community Garden

South London

Glenghall Wharf Garden at Burgess Park, permaculture site with Coco Collective, black-led garden in Lewisham

Jobs/training opportunity resources

Social farms & Gardens
Roots To Work
Organic Lea horticulture courses
Walworth Garden horticulture courses

Image: Created by Lamya Sadiq and tiff webster, MayDay Rooms, 2022.