Garden Projects

Community Greenspace
CEED's belief is that green spaces are a vital part of everyone's lives. Green space means any area of parkland, community gardens or wild ground. CEED view the regeneration of underused land as a valuable means of providing green spaces, creating safe and enjoyable outdoor space for people as well as improving the wildlife value of an area. Working with local people these projects are also an important element in the regeneration of communities, providing a focus for residents to work together on whilst building confidence and skills and allowing for the visual improvement of a neighbourhood . This allows residents to take responsibility for environmental concerns of their community.
Green spaces in urban areas allow people to have direct contact with the natural world, to see trees and flowers growing, to experience the changes of the seasons and to see some of the wildlife that lives in our cities, from birds to butterflies. Such experiences early in a child's life will help to develop a sense of pride for their neighbourhood and to value the natural world as they grow up . Having a safe and attractive environment close to our homes has been shown to improve well being and to reduce problems with antisocial behaviour.

The main aim of CEED's Community projects is to make people aware of the benefits that there are in having greenspace close to home. CEED highlights the fact that there is a lot for people to gain personally as well as contributing to the wildlife value of the area. CEED works to achieve this by running practical tasks, such as tree planting and bulb planting, which are advertised locally. Local schools are also invited to join in especially with art projects and activities on local green spaces to let them know how they can play on and use these natural areas. CEED continue to work with a variety of environmental community projects throughout Sunderland and from September 2005 will be working on a programme of activities promoting the health benefits of physical activity in the natural environment.

School Grounds Projects
An aspect of CEED’s work with schools is the development of their grounds. Providing a stimulating outdoor environment promotes safer and friendlier play, extra learning opportunities and the chance for the whole school to become involved in exciting, hands on projects with visual results. CEED can work with schools throughout all stages of such a project. This may encompass working with pupils to produce initial maps and surveys of what they already have in their school, what they can do there now and what they would like to be able to do. Through its practical expertise CEED can also provide support in the physical development of projects using CEED volunteers or providing training and supervision for pupils, parents and teachers etc.

12 Pupils from Years 3 –6 were involved over 6 weeks to design the Friendship garden. The pupils measured the site, looked at what other pupils already did in the area and what they would like to be able to do. Through discussion the group came up with a list of features for the garden and designed the layout of the site.