City of Sanctuary
The City of Sanctuary UK has objectives of making the UK a welcoming, safe place, and to offer sanctuary to people who are escaping harassment and violence.
Because of this objective the City of Sanctuary UK supports lots of groups (including towns, villages, cities, and counties) across the UK and others who are working towards getting their 'sanctuary' award. This award includes creating any area or activity that will welcome refugees and enable them to feel safe.
Social Farms and Gardens
Social Farms and Gardens is a charity that supports different communities to garden, farm and gain lots of skills together. This charity is spread out all over the UK.
Their aims are to enable different communities to reach their full potential and gain lots of new skills by taking part in nature-based activities, to improve the mental health and fitness of these different communities through these nature-based activities.
At Social Farms and Gardens, they campaign for a better awareness of the people and communities they teach, and fundraise to enhance their site to provide better opportunities for them. They also provide councelling and support, as well as deliver training programmes which enable the people and communities they support to thrive. Mires Beck joined the association in 2019 and is working toward a quality standard, which the association awards its members.
The City of Sanctuary first got their idea of supporting other communities from Social Farms and Gardens, where they wanted to enable people (such as refugees, asylum seekers, resettlers) to feel more comfortable after their journeys from the violence and persecution they have suffered.
Our City of Sanctuary Garden Aim
Our aim is to create the East Riding City of Sanctuary Garden, to welcome refugees, asylum seekers and resettler communities to Mires Beck Nursery by creating a City of Sanctuary Garden on our site. We are working in partnership with the 'Open Doors' charity and City of Sanctuary, Hull to create the design which will focus on the migration of plants and the common foods eaten in the UK which have originated in many of the refugee country of origin. They may have also seen all kinds of beautiful wildflowers during their journeys, which we would also like to connect with our wildflower library at the nursery.
We at Mires Beck Nursery want to break down the barriers of racism by connecting with these communities by sharing our common interests with them.
Garden of Sanctuary Award
Week 1 - this is Alice preparing the ground for the hard landscaping to lay the new pathway around the garden.
Week 2 - Alice has now put fencing in line with the path that will be created in our City of Sanctuary garden
Week 3 - Alice, our estate team, and a few of our service users have been working hard digging up the layout of the new garden
Week 4 - Alice and Gary have had the help of Steve's team and Phil on digging out the path, putting the stakes in, nailing the wood together, and putting the gravel down.
Week 8 - Alice has come much further along with the help of Gary and Phil and today we had the honour to meet Albert Kalombe who is our refugee champion to work with Alice to make this venture a reality.
Week 12 - Alice, Gary and Phil have done amazing progress on the garden. They have now laid out their plants, ready to be planted!
Week 20 - with the Garden of Sanctuary planted and finished, we have now been accredited with the Garden of Sanctuary award from the City of Sanctuary!
World Refugee Day (20th June)
This year on the 20th June, we will be officially opening our City of Sanctuary Garden to celebrate World Refugee Day!
Starting next year we will be celebrating diversity and culture on World Refugee Day and will showcase food, music and art alongside the garden.
City of Sanctuary Award Press Release
We are ecstatic to announce that we have won the Garden of Sanctuary Award from City of Sanctuary! Please click on the button below to read our press release for this amazing achievement:
Latest News
We have our first banana seedling germinated on our site. It's the smaller species of banana, Ensete ventricosum (Ethiopian banana).
What's Trending
Alice has been growing Amaranthus in our Garden of Sanctuary, and we want to share a link with you about how people passionate to preserve tradition and health, have been expanding the reach of the plant and its benefits within their communities!
