A Second Chance With Garden Life
For the past three years, Garden Life in Carlisle has been changing the lives of members of the community who have faced hardship, pain and struggles. Providing rehabilitation sessions for young offenders as well as people with learning and other minor disabilities, Garden Life caters primarily to community concerns and has had a huge impact on the lives of the people it has helped.
The company, in Scalegate Road was founded by experienced landscape gardener, Dennis Sutherland, together with Stuart Sutherland who comes from a teaching background. Dennis said: “The group we work with have been unable to find employment due to their disability, long-term unemployment or criminal records.
“We are currently working with young people between the ages of 16 and 25, but we also work with older adults and retired people.”
Opening its doors in June 2014, the company is now in the process of developing a training arm and also offers Open Awards and NVQ qualifications in horticulture, in association with Newton Rigg College (part of Askham Bryan College).
Dennis added: “We are trying to help the long term unemployed. We believe our project will allow our students to gain invaluable work experience, skills and know-how making them more attractive to employers.
“Our service users are socially disadvantaged and as such feel excluded from normal routes into work. This also makes them feel isolated and can cause mental health issues and lack of confidence. Our project brings a diverse section of the community together doing hands on gardening work which long term will provide a path to employment by building confidence, experience and qualifications.
“The main goal is to help get students in to work either employed or self-employed within a reasonable time scale of ideally 12 months.”
As part of the programme, Garden Life has been building a community garden facility which will accommodate between ten to 50 people working on individual plots per day.
Dennis added: “The team provide much needed fresh vegetables and produce for the food banks and local community which in turn allows the delivery of training for our students and hands-on activities as well as exercise for our older volunteers. All the produce then goes to the local food bank which is run by the Salvation Army in conjunction with Fair Food Carlisle.”
From creating Garden Life, Dennis and Stewart have established a unique and distinctive offering which is both necessary and long overdue within the urban community. Garden life aspires to be a competitive and dedicated horticulture specialist within the residential and commercial gardening projects.
For more information on how to get involved, call Garden Life on 01228 549155.
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