GIY Community Garden Initiative

At GIY, we want home grown and local food to be the norm. Unfortunately many people that want to grow their own food simply do not have the space to do so successfully.

Allotments and community growing spaces (on public or private land) are a way for people to access space to grow their own food. The aim of the GIY Community Garden Initiative is to support and promote a community garden culture in Ireland. In doing so we will help to regenerate marginalised urban and rural communities, improve public health and reduce our community’s reliance on food imports.

We believe there is a need for a central resource in Ireland where people can find information about community gardens in their area. Currently there is a lack of information about the location and activities of the vast majority of community gardens.

There is also no national location that people can register their interest in starting / getting involved with others in a Community Garden.

Project Details

The GIY Community Garden Initiative will involve:

• Mapping supply AND demand for Community Gardens – Develop a map showing the location and details of every community garden in Ireland hosted here.
• Initially the map will be populated manually but there will be, in time, a form that will be populated by individuals and automatically pin placed on the map with location and garden details.
• Gardens listed on the map will be independent of GIY Ireland there is no obligations on behalf of the gardens other than they are accessible to the general public.
• Provide a facility for community gardens to post details, events and photos of their gardens
• Develop Community Garden best practice guides.
• Develop a GIY Community Garden Fund (contingent on securing funding) to offer financial support to Community Gardens.

The above project will support the work of the recently formed All Island/Ireland Community Garden Network. In addition GIY offers the following support to that network:

• Create and maintain a dedicated page on www.giyireland.com for the Community Garden Network – this will bring the work of the network to over 150,000 unique visitors per annum.
• GIY will create a dedicated forum on www.giyireland.com to allow the network to communicate.
• GIY will also promote the CGN through it e-zine and website to a network of 12,000 people and almost 100 groups around the country.
• GIY will assist the facilitator of the Network in carrying out their work.
• GIY will help to bring the network together at regional and national events such as the GIY Gathering, providing a networking and promotion opportunity for the work of the network.

• < Prev
• Next >