ENGAGING DUNDEE AFRICAN WOMEN IN GARDENING ACTIVITIES (360G-SCVO-a0gb00000129Tq9AAE)

From pilot project delivered by STRIDE, it is very apparent that African women suffer from a myriad of social problems. The main problems encountered by African women in Dundee city are: • Through funding from Voluntary Action Fund (VAF) Social Isolation and Loneliness Funds (SIALF) we reached out to more than 100 African families in Dundee through community events, outreach work and a variety of indoor activities. • Feedback from the participants indicated that African women were very much lonely and socially isolated as a result of child-caring responsibilities, no recourse to public funds due to their immigration status, poor communication skills due to lack of English language, very poor networks of friends due to lack of a common community project that could bring such women together. • There is a problem of high levels social isolation and loneliness among African women and their families living in some of the most deprived neighborhoods of Dundee city and nearby towns. • Their social isolation and loneliness is made worse for lack of an African led community project and the welfare reforms that are impacting negatively to such families. In response to the demand from African people especially women for STRIDE to set up a community project that can bring them together, we have recently acquired an allotment at the Dundee Law Hill. The allotment is managed by Kinnaird Gardens Association located at Committee Hut, Kinghorn Road, (at the west end of allotments) in Dundee. • We would like to set up a volunteering project aimed at bringing together African women and their families in gardening activities to improve their health, reduce social isolation and loneliness amongst such women and their families. • We will recruit a sessional worker with some gardening skills working 12 hours per week for 9 months to coordinate and bring together 10 African women and their families in Dundee City to engage in gardening activities aimed at encouraging them into volunteering. • We will recruit the sessional worker from some of our volunteers who have been doing some gardening, and they have skills on how to do gardening. • We will also recruit an occasional gardening professional to come and deliver 8 gardening sessions to the participating African women, their families and other volunteers. • The sessional worker will train the 10 African women on the basic skills of gardening helping them to understand the crops, vegetables, and fruits that they can grow in the Scottish weather. The sessional worker will organise 18 gardening sessions (which will be busy during the summer time). The women will engage in weekly gardening sessions. During winter time in the month of December to March, the sessional worker will be busy recruiting the African women to be involved in the project through church groups, ethnic minority organisations and by relying on our STRIDE members to reach out to the hard to reach families to get involved in the project. The sessional worker will publicise the project widely to community centres in Dundee, GP surgeries, mum groups, African women groups and any other gathering where African women can be reached. We will put posters in the local shops and supermarket to reach out to many women. • We will use the funds to buy seeds and gardening inputs. • We will also use the funds to buy gardening tools and equipment. • By bringing together African women living in Dundee area to engage in volunteering through gardening activities will help them and their families learn how to grow food, it will help the women to get out and connect hence reducing levels of social isolation and loneliness. • This project will also help African families to easily talk to other families at the allotments hence helping to increase community integration. • Gardening is a very good starting point to engage lonely and isolated African women into volunteering. • By the women growing some vegetables at the allotment will help to supplement their nutritional needs of their families. With the welfare reforms now affecting many vulnerable people, some families cannot afford to buy fresh vegetables for their families. By growing their own greens and fresh vegetables in the allotment, it will help the women to make savings. • The allotment will also enable women who are lonely and isolated in their own homes due to lack of support with childcare will be able to come out and meet other women at the allotments and share parenting skills. The welfare reforms have resulted in reduced support for families with children forcing the women to stay home and look after children exacerbating their loneliness and social isolation. • By the women engaging in the gardening activities, they will meet other women and learn from them about volunteering opportunities, further education, and job opportunities to help them improve their lives. • The women who participate in this project will be motivated to start small gardening projects in their back gardens as a source of food and earning extra income.