Find your place in the field of good food

Our goal is to connect good people with good food. We advertise sustainable food jobs and training opportunities to help jobseekers and employers find each other.

Roots to Work is a project of Sustain: the alliance for better food and farming.

Job description

Job Purpose

Global Generation is looking for a facilitator who is passionate about involving the community in growing plants and habitats. As the Community and Education Gardener for our work in and around the Paper Garden in Canada Water, you will be responsible for supporting the Senior Garden and Education Programmes Coordinator in engaging local primary school pupils, families and volunteers in Global Generation’s gardening projects. You will work side by side with our teams in co-planning and facilitating workshops, as well as maintaining our garden. The workshops will be a mix of gardening, art, cooking, movement, making, creative writing, and performance - your focus will be on growing plants and habitats within these workshops, but you are encouraged to also bring other creative aspects of your practice to the young people.

The programmes you will work on in the Paper Garden are: 

• Primary School term time workshops
• Community Groups school holiday workshops
• Co-facilitating adult volunteer days
• You will also share responsibly for the care of the garden and site with the Paper Garden team.

Organisational Context

Founded in 2004, we grow food, people and community for a fair and just world. Our vision informs our two charitable aims which are the guiding principles for our work:

• To provide opportunities for the direct experience of natural wilderness environments for children, young people and adults
• To support young people to develop their full potential so they are able to contribute positively to society and the environment We operate in the boroughs of Camden, Islington and Southwark and work with people of all ages, particularly children and young people. Working from educational and biodiverse garden spaces such as the Story Garden and Floating Garden in King’s Cross (with a permanent community garden currently being built in KX) and the Paper Garden in Canada Water, we combine activities such as urban food growing, carpentry, making, cooking, and healthy eating with dialogue, storytelling, creative writing, performance and art, silence and stillness. These practices help us to create the conditions for people to come together in a fuller and more connected sense of who they are and what they are a part of and, from that space, to practically and creatively contribute to ecological and social change. Young people have always been and continue to be at the heart of our work. We aim to support them to develop and lead, offering progression opportunities to move from being participants to being action researchers, co-facilitators and ambassadors, to being paid fellows, staff and trustees. You will work closely with the Paper Garden team, gardeners, chefs, volunteers and young people, running hands-on and reflective sessions for young people.

Main Duties and Responsibilities

1. Programme Planning and Facilitation

• Work closely with the Paper Garden Education team in planning and facilitating primary school and community workshops. The term time workshops will be a mix of full class workshops on Thursdays, and smaller targeted groups on Fridays.
• Document and evaluate the school programmes you are working on using creative means through a wide range of approaches, incorporating quantitative and qualitative data
• Use our secure database Plinth to record essential details for monitoring purposes and privacy permissions granted of the young people

2. Contributing to the development, gardening, and care of Paper Garden and Global Generation

• Be a crucial part of developing the overall vision on how best to involve children,  young people and the community in aspects of Global Generation’s outdoor learning
• Attend team meetings as required and input into vision of gardens, education, and wider organisation
• You will be part of a team that shares rota responsibilities of the garden, the kitchen, the office, and the classroom space. Your area is to be responsible for holding the general upkeep of a particular aspect of the garden e.g. chicken care, composting, watering, harvesting, polytunnel

Any given week could include:

• Planning, developing, and delivering workshops with children and young people or corporate volunteers
• Joining whole charity meetings, gatherings, and quarterly away days
• Attending the weekly Wednesday afternoon Paper Garden whole team meeting
• Contributing to garden growth, site development and maintenance with young people and the team
• Having regular 1:1s with your manager Senior Garden and Education Programmes Coordinator
• Project monitoring

What we are looking for:

• As the Community and Education Gardener, you will be outgoing and love to work with children and young people (particularly with 4 - 11 years old), channeling this passion into creating interesting programmes of workshops.
• You will have prior experience of working with schools/community groups and in planning and facilitating year long programmes, building in different ways of knowing and creative approaches so as to reach a cross-section of young people, adapting to different abilities and needs.
• You will be ready to input creative ideas into the planning stages of the workshops.
• You will be ready to take initiative, have a flexible attitude, be able to think on your feet and enjoy finding solutions when faced with challenges and change.
• You will have experience and a love of urban gardening and/or food growing and engaging people in growing plants and habitats.
• You will bring to the team a skill/passion (this could be developed or something you are freshly experimenting with) in facilitating a creative practice such as storytelling, movement, acting, signing, ceramics, weaving, textiles or other.
• You will also have an interest in action research and/or participatory approaches to learning, acting and reflecting.
• You enjoy working collaboratively with the team in maintaining the site through shared systems and workload.
• You will be able to communicate your passion for Global Generation’s work, in a creative and engaging way, responding to where people are at, and adapt your approach based on this.

These are some of our core values which we aim for all of our staff to share and develop to guide our work:

• Commitment to equity, diversity and sustainability in all aspects of our approach
• Passionate about working with people to engage them in ways to learn new skills, build connections and fulfil their potential
• A love of working outdoors, the natural environment and urban greening
• Appreciation of working across sectors, disciplines and worldviews

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Benefits to working with Global Generation

We aim to create a supportive, creative and rewarding environment for you to work in. All members of staff are part of collaboratively developing how we work as an organisation. We do this through offering staff lunches, weekly team meetings, reflective spaces to learn together, away days and residentials which give us an opportunity to come together to reflect and explore different aspects of our work and collectively contribute towards the vision of the organisation. There are also opportunities for job related training and coaching as part of your own personal development, the opportunity to slow down, plan and reflect during the winter, and the possibility for additional support if the need arises through our partnership with the Camden Psychotherapy Unit. This job description is issued as a guideline to assist you in your duties; it is not exhaustive and may be subject to change according to the needs of the Charity and due to the evolving nature and changing demands of our work. For more information please visit: www.globalgeneration.org.uk

Application information

Please complete an application form and email it to jobs@globalgeneration.org.uk along with your CV and Equal Opportunities Monitoring form. You can download the forms from the jobs page on our website.

Please mention Roots to Work when applying for these jobs