Southill Hub Community Garden (2019-2020)

The Green CWELL project team is restoring the Southill Hub community garden, under the able direction of community gardener, Barbara Mulcahy. The project team has planned a series of family-oriented events to foster community interest in maintaining the garden in the future.
The project aims to ensure that the garden is organic and sustainable, as well as providing a pleasant, inclusive, and accessible space for the whole community. The plan is that the garden will be suitable for community use by all ages and people living with disabilities.

A restored community garden offers the space to improve the mental health of the community and reduce loneliness. The garden will provide an eco-friendly, sustainable green space in an urban community. Keen to build on existing social capital and increase UL connections to the community, spaces, the Green CWELL team decided to help restore an existing community garden which had become overgrown and fallen into disrepair. Local funding cuts and dwindling volunteers had left the Southill Hub garden in the care of a one determined community gardener, Barbara Mulcahy. Under her direction, the CWELL Green team hope to restore the garden and share in its maintenance going forward.

The project is in partnership with members of the Southill community.
The project is supported by: Southill Hub Community gardener, Barbara Mulcahy, the Southill Hub Centre Manager, Karen O’Donnell O’Connor, the Green CWELL project team and the University of Limerick.
Funding for the garden restoration was provided by the University of Limerick Foundation.

The team measure the success of the project by doing headcounts at their events and carrying out surveys and were doing well until the COVID-19 restrictions stopped their events.
A Valentine's day event in the garden was cancelled though previous events were well-supported by the local community.
Due to the public health restriction necessary to deal with Covid-19, the team have not been able to continue their work. However, they intend to return to the garden once it is safe restrictions lifted.

This module comprises workshop-based project management training delivered in CWELL classes with practical experiential learning, applied in a community- based project, designed to address an identified need. Module delivery comprises a series of practical exercises, designed to support knowledge of, and capacity building for project management. Students taking this module will be expected to design and deliver a community- based project to address an identified need.

The aims of this project are three-fold. First, to conserve an established community garden in Southill. Second, to promote community well-being in Southill by making the garden a focal point for community activity and education. Green spaces in urban areas are known to improve mental health. Third, to augment and support existing community assets and expertise. Restoration projects in collaboration with a community build skills and promote the maintenance of community assets. The Green CWELL team hope that in restoring this garden, more people will get involved, ensuring its future.
While the team could have developed a new garden, there is an established one at the Southill Hub. In line with one of the core values of the project, sustainability, the team decided to start again would have been wasteful.

The Green CWELL team will work in collaboration with
• the Southill Hub Community Gardener,
• Southill Hub Centre
• University of Limerick Community Engagement Facilitator, CWELL.
• The University of Limerick Foundation

There will be two assessments points to this module, each worth 50% of your final mark. The first assessment will comprise a site visit to your project by a panel of CWELL assessors. The second assessment will comprise the creation of a Project Portfolio detailing the project’s design and implementation and your participation in it. Guidelines concerning the creation of portfolios are available from the module’s Sulis site.