STORY: Green Community Hubs – Djamel
As a long-time volunteer at Maryport’s Green Community Hub, Djamel knows all too well the positive impact community projects can have on individuals, and the knock-on effect they can have in so many different ways.
Djamel has witnessed multiple and varied benefits from the development of the Cumbrian Hub and believes it has brought a whole new dimension to the centre itself, the people who attend, and the wider area.
Speaking of his involvement, Djamel said:
“I started volunteering at The Settlement in 2018. I’ve seen ups and downs – cost of living crisis, energy bills crisis, COVID-19 and so on – and I’ve seen how they’ve affected people.
“I started a project at the centre from scratch, which is a workshop bringing people in who have various difficulties. Our ethos is to recycle; everything is recycled with as little expense as possible. We sell everything and the equipment has been donated.
“People can gather and do creative things like woodwork, glass working or engraving, or some people have got projects at home and they haven’t got the tools and space, so they can come here. Some people come just to meet other people and interact; it keeps them out of their own four walls, that is the main thing.
“In the cellar we’re making some raised planters and bird boxes for the garden. It’s massive, because more people are here and the place is developing. People don’t just come with their energy, they come with ideas. One person says ‘okay I’ve got an idea’ and someone else says ‘I have got the knowledge, I have got the tools’. It makes a marriage. It’s a domino effect, and it’s not something you can predict.”
The cellar project now links into Groundwork’s Green Community Hub project which has transformed the under-used, overgrown outdoor area of the centre into a community growing space and garden for all to use.
“Families come here with children and they learn a lot of things. There are places to learn and play and it’s safe. They’re away from tablets and computers and can see where fruit come from or where a vegetable comes from.
“I’ve seen lots of the artists based here who want to get involved with it. There’s nice scenery at the back and they want to go out and start painting. Some of them have knowledge about, for instance, what is a rare plant or flower, so they pass that on.
“We have another group connected to refugees and it’s fantastic that people from all different countries, communities and cultures come together in harmony. For some of them it is a good opportunity to speak and learn English and integrate. I always tell them ‘you want to learn, you have this good opportunity here to practice’ because I did that in the past myself.
“We have a yoga class and they find that space absolutely fantastic when it’s warm outside – the fresh air, maybe some insects coming around.”
Djamel has not only witnessed the physical transformation of the space and how it is being used, but huge transformations in the participants too:
They are different people from when they came the first day. Before, they couldn’t talk to people; they were enclosing themselves in their own bubble, and anything you said to them they couldn’t answer. Now, they’re taking part in the steering group and coming up with ideas. It’s basically like an explosion. They have freedom to talk and if they’re not happy with something they can speak up. What they were in the beginning compared with now is absolutely crazy.