The Children’s Wood: getting back to nature for community benefit

An award-winning urban wild space in North-West Glasgow, The Children’s Wood recently celebrated its 10^th anniversary. From free outdoor learning sessions to toddler groups and community gardening sessions, the charity has spent the last decade celebrating and promoting the natural habitat.

Development Officer, Karen Stuart, outlines how The Children’s Wood has grown into a valuable space for outdoor public events and how funding from the Greggs Foundation helps to support the continuation of that work.

The Children’s Wood was born out of a community’s desire to protect the last wild space in the West End of Glasgow. What began as the North Kelvin Meadow Campaign back in 2008 – an initiative that saw local residents clear the land of litter, install bins, plant flowers, mend fences and install raised beds – soon evolved into a project that proposed a meaningful alternative to selling off land for housing.

The initiative became known as The Children’s Wood in 2011, holding playgroups and public events, and bringing schools and nurseries to the land for outdoor learning. In the process it attracted the support of author Julia Donaldson and comedian Frankie Boyle.

In 2015, The Children’s Wood officially became a registered charity and proposed a plan to keep the wild space as a community woodland and park before finally securing a 25 year lease on the land in 2022. 

Known as a place where people can picnic, garden, play and socialise, The Children’s Wood has built a strong reputation for involving people of all ages in the management of the land, raising aspirations through a range of educational events and classes.

In an area of deprivation, the creation of a real “secret garden” has provided locals with an antidote to some of the mental and physical challenges faced in daily life. The benefits of reconnecting with nature for mind and body are well documented but in an area with little access to wild spaces, The Children’s Wood represents a safe haven for all.

As Development Officer, Karen Stuart, explains:

“As a charity, The Children’s wood is responsible for the upkeep of the woodland and along with our community of volunteers we run a range of free sessions from here so that more people in our community can access nature and the outdoors.

“This includes twice weekly toddler groups, community gardening sessions, school literacy programmes and forest school sessions.

“In an inner city area like the West End of Glasgow there are several schools in our vicinity but they all have concrete playgrounds and the kids mainly live in tenement flats without their own gardens. So, having a green space like this is a really precious thing to preserve.”

Asked to explain what The Children’s Wood and North Kelvin Meadow means to those in the local community, she says,

“We hear all the time from teachers, parents and children how much joy they get from getting outdoors and away from screens so they can appreciate nature. Teachers also tell us that understanding the environment gives children a new appreciation of the climate education they receive as part of the curriculum.

“Growing to love nature plays a big part in people’s attitudes towards protecting it in their daily lives.

“Similarly, getting groups involved with our community garden and helping to cultivate vegetables, herbs and fruit has genuinely improved people’s approach to healthy eating, we’ve found. Seeing where food comes from and being able to taste or smell ingredients can really change their attitudes towards them.”

Karen is one of three part-time members of staff employed by The Children’s Wood who are funded by charity partners including The Greggs Foundation.

Although The Children’s Wood is largely resourced by an army of volunteers, retaining paid members of staff to coordinate activities, and protect and maintain the land is essential to ensuring that the local community get the very best out of their local wild space.

Due to the proximity of The Children’s Wood to a Greggs outlet store, the charity is eligible for a Community Grant from the Greggs Foundation. This £20,000 per year grant represents 42% of the charity’s current annual salary bill and plays a significant role in enabling Karen and her team to deliver on their strategy.

“Core funding is the hardest funding to get as it’s not always an attractive proposition for funders who like to be involved in small, clearly defined projects that they can report on. But securing funds to cover salaries, insurance and other running costs frees the charity up to focus on delivering value to the community rather than playing catch up all the time.

“It’s been amazing to be able to work with the team at the Greggs Foundation not only because they are supporting us for two years but also because they have been so keen to build a real relationship with us. We’ve had visits from both Tracy and Justine at the Foundation over the last 18 months and we were even visited by Greggs CEO, Roisin Currie. The fact that they are so interested in our work gives everyone a boost.

“It’s even led to other support for our 10-year anniversary event, which we held at the Summer Solstice. ”

You can find out more about the past, present and future of The Children’s Wood by visiting their website here.