Youth Community Garden, Bognor Regis

The Youth-Led Community Garden was created in response to feedback from the community about a need for projects that can support local young people’s mental wellbeing. Over the course of 6 months, 16 Young Changemakers met regularly online and in person to develop their ideas, commission artists and a landscaper for the space, and received training in Creative Leadership (Bronze Arts Award), Communication and Teamwork. 

Throughout the project, the young people have championed youth voice by collaboratively tackling important local issues, with a particular focus on young people’s mental health and combatting feelings of isolation, excessive screen use, and stereotyping of young people in public spaces.

They explored these themes further by taking part in workshops that considered Augmented Reality possibilities with AR professional Sophie Dixon, and developing textile mood boards with Shirley Bloomfield Davies.

Why a garden?

When asked how the project could meet the needs and fix the issues that local young people had voiced, the Changemakers worked together to establish the idea of a community garden space that would be:

• A place for young people to make friends 
• Accessible to everyone 
• A safe space for young people to feel welcome, heavily inspired by nature

Each element of the garden was carefully thought through by the young people to ensure accessibility and inclusion for all. These features include a wildlife area, pond, sensory planting, stage, new seating, and artworks made by mosaic artist Honey Mosaics and designer Angela Chick, who also attended the garden launch.

A particularly thoughtful idea when considering how to bring the community together, was to create a welcome sign with ​‘Hello’ in a variety of languages. The group also designed several rules that would keep the space safe, clean and inclusive to all users.

The Changemakers felt that it was important for ​“people of all races, cultures, genders, and ages” to feel welcome and connected to the garden space and ​“to inspire others to be creative.” To do this, they came up with the idea of a mosaic mural that different schools, communities, and families could contribute towards. With each slate completed, they could then be brought together to create a large collaborative mural that truly represents the wider community and the values that inspire the new space such as Friendship, Kindness, Art, Connection and Broken & Fixed Mental Health.

The community mosaic was created with the Young Cultural Changemakers and students from Southway Primary, Nyewood Primary, and other local families, by mosaic artist selected by the young people, Honey Mosaics.