Nature, Community, and Wellbeing: Inside Roby Community Centre
Pinned between Knotty Ash in the North West and Roby in the East, the Roby Community Centre opens onto housing at its entrance, an embodiment of its interwoven relationship with the local region. A train line splinters through a mounded ridge behind the building, veins of a system that extend to similar vistas across the country. Walking into the building, a room to the left frames a scene of child’s laughter reverberating off newly fitted double-glazed windows that project sunlight onto a wooden-fitted mosaic floor. In an instant it is noticeable the community cohesion enveloped inside of these four walls. Conversations unravel between the adults as they sit attentively watching children interact with the environment they find themselves in. Inside of this room, the distance between adults and children is blurred, every sound contributing to the cacophony of noise protruding from the room. Today is Stay & Play, and I am greeted by Mark, a member of staff who kindly proposes to show me around.
Walking through the backdoor exit a concrete path skirts around the first garden area. Our guide Mark elaborates that this area is set to host children’s birthday parties, stabilising the venues memory for a new generation of community members. A colourful parade of planters in the adjacent garden space unfairly draws attention away from the potential of this space. Tables and chairs are arranged before the slope’s gradual dissolution on concrete paving that secures my footing. A train careers past. Grassy mounds populate the perimeter of this secondary outdoor area, containing a flooded depression in the landscape that stoops closer to the water table. Its sky-blue vignette is reflected back at the sky, an exchange that is ever present. But its pond like appearance is deceptive, its presence is dependent on precipitation and weather patterns – a synergy that relies on an ever increasingly fragile relationship with its human interactors. Roby Community Centre’s visitors enjoy this space, its success marked by excessively trodden paths and the layer of paint removed from extreme usage on garden chairs. Responsibility for societal inclusion is elevated through this centre’s willingness to utilise its green space. An insect hotel hangs next to the Big Help Project’s logo on the outdoor wall of the garden, a microcosm of the larger acknowledgement to revolutionise an organisation’s footprint on the earth we share with nature.
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Smaller implementations that positively impact the natural world e.g., insect hotels, are increasingly reported as enhancing pollinator support networks (Harris et al., 2021), their influence in this locale is noted by the abundance of flowering plants. Access to green space has been linked to a mitigation of mental health deterioration in children and adolescents (Vanaken & Danckaerts, 2018). As such there is a growing recognition of the role the Big Help Project has in neatly aligning with positive trends in socio-environmental discourse to ascertain impactful and meaningful outcomes for the local communities the organisation supports. Moreover, recognising the potential to lean further into ecological protective measures (i.e., pond renovation) are ideas that are explored within the Big Help Project’s remit of improving sustainability for visitors of the hubs we cherish.
Roby Community Centre also provides classes for the local community in varied disciplines (e.g., Information Technology lessons and Yoga) to increase wellbeing and societal belonging, both of which amplifies the role of the Big Help Project in influencing communities on an interpersonal and intergenerational development level – an obligation that the organisation can guarantee support for. Serageldin (1996) first proposed the multi-faceted dimensions of sustainability in a pyramid format, the remnants of which manifest in current sustainability rhetoric noted in policy and academic work. Providing strong foundations for the reiteration of this model, the work championed in Roby Community Centre propels theoretical work into an arena of practical fruition, combining the trifecta of social, economic and environmental prosperity together, positively impacting the community members who visit the centre.
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After Mark had meandered through the garden area he led us back along the ramped entrance and into the building. A series of hanging baskets sport a flower collection punctuating the otherwise mundane guard rail that supported this pathway. Their disposition against the brick-wall vividly juxtaposing the colour of each petal. It has been long understood that adding providers of ecosystem services (i.e., hanging flower baskets) to locales that neglect ecological support can enable greater connection and symbiosis with nature and its network of benefits; health and wellbeing (Bolund & Hunhammar, 1999). It was a final reminder of the emphasis the team members at Roby Community Centre and Big Help Project place on providing a backdrop of nature’s importance in urban areas that may otherwise neglect it.
References
B.A., Poole, E.M., Braman, S.K. and Pennisi, S.V. (2021) ‘Consumer-ready insect hotels: an assessment of arthropod visitation and nesting success’, Journal of Entomological Science, 56(2), pp.141-155.
Bolund, P. and Hunhammar, S. (1999) ‘Ecosystem services in urban areas’, Ecological Economics, 29(2), pp.293-301.
Serageldin, I. (1996) ‘Sustainability and the wealth of nations: First steps in an ongoing journey’. World Bank: Washington D.C.
Vanaken, G.J. and Danckaerts, M. (2018) ‘Impact of green space exposure on children’s and adolescents’ mental health: A systematic review’, International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 15(12), p.2668.