Hackney Herbal is a garden-based social enterprise that promotes wellbeing by connecting people with herbs through creative nature-based activities. We run a variety of hands-on workshops, courses, and events with all our profits being used to fund free nature-based activities connecting people and herbs in Hackney. 

Since Hackney Herbal was established, a key focus of our work has been ensuring our activities are accessible and freely available to people in our local community. The core elements of our community work are:

  • Herb Group

  • Community Courses

  • Our Garden

  • Community Events & Resources

Read more about our Social Impact goals below.

 
 

Herb Group //

The aim of the Herb Group is to provide long-term opportunities for people to connect with plants and each other in Hackney. We set up our Herb Group in 2017 to create an ongoing space for people to stay connected after they have completed a community course with us. We run monthly meet-ups that are focused on herbal learning, peer support, social connection and nature connection through nature-based activities and trips. 

We produced this short video to celebrate the Herb Group and honour all of our Herb Group members, who have all been such an important part of creating a space to come together, support each other and share a love for herbs and nature.

 
 

With special thanks to everyone who took part in the video - Abdul, Amy, Daisy, Juliana, Katie, Lynne, Nat, Nichola, Ninette, Oleander, Zita. 

We thank the Bromley by Bow Centre and Investec whose support through the Beyond Business programme funded this video. 

Film by Emily Munster

 

Community Courses //

Our community courses and groups provide opportunities for local people to interact with herbs and each other in a social and supportive way. 

We partner with local organisations such as City & Hackney Mind, The Centre for Better Health and the Recovery College to run our courses and activities. Our projects also support people who have been referred to us through the Hackney Wellbeing Network. 

Our free community courses teach beneficiaries how to grow herbs and make their own remedies to support their own wellbeing. Self care and peer-support are incorporated to offer a holistic approach. Sessions are carefully facilitated to allow participants to safely share their own experiences and develop individual and collective coping mechanisms.

 

“Thank you so much for this course. It helped me to have something positive to focus on during a very anxious and stressful time. It was also comforting to (virtually) meet other local people in similar situations with the same interests at a time when I don’t feel safe to go outside. I'm not only more confident in growing herbs, my confidence using Zoom has gone up too!”

 

Our Garden //

Our community garden is a space where plants, people and wildlife can thrive. In this space we run gardening sessions with local people and volunteers and hold community events to bring people together. 

In July 2019 we finally moved into the gardens at Trowbridge Gardens in Hackney. This is now our dedicated garden home where we have started to deliver weekly gardening sessions, volunteering sessions, community courses and public events. Our aim is to create a community garden where plants, people and wildlife can thrive. 

In July 2020 we started to slowly re-open the garden to our regular volunteers and community members. We created new risk assessments and put measures into place to facilitate social distancing and safe working eg. no tool sharing. This enabled us to welcome back some of our beneficiaries who are able to leave their homes. After a month of testing our new procedures we are now back to running weekly sessions and working closely again with the social prescribing networks and other local referrers to connect more people with our gardening activities.  

Community Events + Resources //

We run free community events that are open to everyone to attend and create free, engaging resources for our wider community that are shared through our blog and social media.

“This is the first Hackney Herbal event I’ve been to. It’s been really nice to join this event and meet others who share similar interests. Having the opportunity to celebrate the equinox collectively with others in such as intentional way has been really special, thank you!”

Social Impact //

Our community work is guided by our Social Impact Framework, which outlines our Social Impact Goals, embedded within our organisational values and commitments.  

Our social impact goals are centred around:

  • Increasing social cohesion in our community and increasing people’s long-term connection to and relationship with people and plants. 

  • Creating physical spaces that are inspiring and designed for education and wellbeing, where people, plants and nature can thrive. 

  • Engaging local people from different community groups in educational herbal courses to:

    • build knowledge + skills

    • build social connections + networks

    • increase independence

    • increase wellbeing