By Will Horwitz
Click to enlarge
There’s a simple formula running through the diversity of projects we run at Community Links. Whether it’s young people making music videos or playing football, pensioners enjoying a game of bingo, or most recently families looking round a farm, that common theme is that we’re building communities. Bringing people together to enjoy an activity, but perhaps more importantly, providing the space, the time, and the encouragement for people to meet and get on, for community to grow and society to become richer.
That was the theory behind us taking on, at the start of the year, responsibility for Newham City Farm. For the next 20 years it is ours to develop into a true community hub. Yes, part of the aim is to give children the chance to see where milk comes from. But even more important, to us, is the chance to strengthen a local community. And if it takes some piglets and horses to get people together, that’s absolutely fine.
We already run a children’s playscheme and part of our school provision from there, and farm manager Theresa regularly hosts Community Links volunteers who help out around the place, most recently by building the beginnings of a market garden, with which we hope to raise money for Community Links.
But we have ambitious plans. If you click on the picture above, you should find a large map of the current site, with all the changes we’re proposing. Please do let us know what you think, or if you can help. They are only provisional, but they do begin to give an idea of the scale of our ambition.
There’s a simple formula running through the diversity of projects we run at Community Links. Whether it’s young people making music videos or playing football, pensioners enjoying a game of bingo, or most recently families looking round a farm, that common theme is that we’re building communities. Bringing people together to enjoy an activity, but perhaps more importantly, providing the space, the time, and the encouragement for people to meet and get on, for community to grow and society to become richer.
That was the theory behind us taking on, at the start of the year, responsibility for Newham City Farm. For the next 20 years it is ours to develop into a true community hub. Yes, part of the aim is to give children the chance to see where milk comes from. But even more important, to us, is the chance to strengthen a local community. And if it takes some piglets and horses to get people together, that’s absolutely fine.
We already run a children’s playscheme and part of our school provision from there, and farm manager Theresa regularly hosts Community Links volunteers who help out around the place, most recently by building the beginnings of a market garden, with which we hope to raise money for Community Links.
But we have ambitious plans. If you click on the picture above, you should find a large map of the current site, with all the changes we’re proposing. Please do let us know what you think, or if you can help. They are only provisional, but they do begin to give an idea of the scale of our ambition.