We love eco arts practice in Creativity & Change and we see a strong link between gardening and Global Citizenship Education. Through collaboration with local groups, our friend, Hazel Hurley, has run a number of workshops and events talking about trees, nature, and community gardens and how we can use them to connect local and global issues and to manifest a better future for us and the planet.
In 2021 we worked with Green Spaces for Health and Cork City Council to open a parklet outside the Quay Co Op on Sullivan’s Quay. Parklets convert a few parking spots into a public open space and are a great way to bring nature into the city. We are always holding workshops in ours and using it as a space for gathering and learning. Hazel does a great job of keeping it maintained year-round too!
Hazel ran a series of workshops in Togher Community Gardens on topics such as how to process tree seeds and the link between wildflowers and Global Citizenship Education. In collaboration with the group, she created a leaflet on the benefits of community gardening. Mabel Hernandez, from the Community Garden, is an expert in all things amaranth, so Hazel additionally worked with her to create an information leaflet all about amaranth and how it is an alternative crop for the future.
Tree Amigos
Tree Amigos is a workshop series developed and delivered by Hazel, for adults, to explore our native trees and their global connections through story sharing and creative activities. These workshops were delivered in both Rebel Reads and CECAS in Leap. They created a space to learn, share, and reconnect with our native trees by making friends with them. In each workshop a different tree was brought into the room and everything from its name as Gaeilge, its scientific name, and its medicinal benefits, to its roots in folklore, art, its old uses, and its connection to the Irish people were explored. Hazel then worked with the groups to make creative responses to the trees.
One of the workshops was held as part of CECAS’ BioFest Festival of Biodiversity. All of the workshops were free to attend, all participants needed to bring with them was their curiositree!
Hazel has run a series of nature-based workshops in both Hollyhill and Tory Top libraries with adults with intellectual disabilities from Horizon (previously the Cope Foundation). They did a Tree Amigos workshop in Tory Top library where they looked at the Hawthorn tree. Holyhill library are working on installing a garden with Maria Young from Green Spaces for Health, so Hazel took the workshops outside and ran sessions on planting peas and planting a tree nursery.