Incredible Edible Lambeth

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Grow your own way

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Looking back on U.Lab

By Olivia Haughton

In the last few months you may have read about the U.Lab Grow Your Own Leaders programme run in the spring by Incredible Edible Lambeth and Impact Hub Brixton. The premise of the course may seem foreign to many but the experience can benefit everyone.

It’s quite hard to describe what U.Lab is. Even now, having gone through the process, I struggle to condense the theory into a tidy sentence to relay to friends the journey I’ve been on. The theoretical grounding of the course seemed a little daunting at first and I wasn’t sure what I was signing up for. In practice what I gained was a network of supportive people who all want to make a difference and together we were equipped with the tools to do so. Continue reading…

Garden Angells

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Last month I was fortunate enough to spend an afternoon on Angell Town with Simon Ghartey and some local and not-so-local volunteers installing a genuine RHS Chelsea garden, direct from the Flower Show, on a green patch at the heart of estate.

Residents from the estate were buzzing with excitement. Antoinella Prempeh, who lives opposite the garden, was beaming. “It such a positive change for us. This is a ‘top notch’ garden – something that you would normally only see in Kensington or Chelsea is here on my doorstep”. Continue reading…

Open Orchard Comes To Brixton

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The Open Orchard project came to central Brixton at the end of February, joining forces with the local residents of the Canterbury Gardens estate to plant 9 gorgeous fruit trees.

The Open Orchard project started in West Norwood in 2014- an initiative supported by Lambeth Council through their visionary Open Works programme. They were successful in planting 67 trees in 9 mini-orchards, all of which had existing community groups who look after the trees. Continue reading…

Grow Your Own Leaders

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Incredible Edible Lambeth (IEL) has partnered with Lambeth Food Partnership and ImpactHub Brixton to deliver a collaboration & leadership development programme for food activists.

IEL, like many community organisations, has often found itself with too few people, too little time and good people suffering from burnout. So it was with great interest we heard about the U.Lab programme, developed by action researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology that was  being pioneered locally by ImpactHub Brixton. We took part in the first programme and went on to co-create a version focused on food. Continue reading…

Public Green Spaces That Really Deserve Investment

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As a director of Incredible Edible Lambeth (IEL) and founding director of Brixton based ‘The Edible Bus Stop®’ (EBS), Mak Gilchrist, has a passion for encouraging the growing of edibles in the urban environment, the breaking down of neighbourhood barriers by generating conversations and creating landmarks of pride for communities. Resident of Brixton for over 30 years, she, along with the team at the EBS and fellow directors of Incredible Edible Lambeth (IEL), are firm believers in the importance of keeping public land public and crucially, accessible. Continue reading…

On Blue Plates

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Incredible Edible Lambeth is supporting a new campaign called On Blue Plates (@onblueplates on Twitter). It is looking for 50 restaurants, pubs or cafes to donate 1 meal a year (£140) to the members of the Healthy Living Club at Lingham Court – Lambeth’s very own dementia charity. Continue reading…

Save the bees – and the frogs, beetles, butterflies, and bats

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Incredible Edible Lambeth social media has been buzzing has been this year as community gardeners all over the borough have been shocked at the ‘eradication’ of Cowley Food Farm. Much to the horror of community gardeners the site of the farm, more than 5 years in existence, has been cleared by contractors and now faces permanent eradication, apparently due to ‘lack of interest’ Continue reading…

Rise in Food Poverty in Lambeth

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Incredible Edible Lambeth is one of the core partners of the Lambeth Food Partnership (LFP), along with Lambeth Council and Lambeth Public Health.

On Tuesday 8 th December LFP held a panel discussion on food poverty at Pop Brixton, as part of its annual general meeting. Panel speakers were Hannah Laurison, from Sustain, a national food campaign organisation, John Taylor from Brixton food bank, and Kemi Akinola from Brixton People’s Kitchen. All gave their perspectives on food poverty in Lambeth. Continue reading…

Love Your Roots

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Since early 2015 Incredible Edible Lambeth has been running a small grants scheme for community food projects called Love Your Roots. The grant is usually used for equipment such as compost bins, planters, raised beds, trees etc. However the projects themselves vary hugely. One very inspiring project is taking place in the area of Loughborough Road, Akerman Road and Evandale Road (near the Fiveways Junction), called L.E.A.F. gardeners. Continue reading…