“My name is Yasmine. I live here in Moss Side and this is my community alleyway. I've been kind of organising this with my neighbours for the past six years. And it's been, like, the most fun and cool thing we've done as a community together.
Before we did anything in the alleyway there was just like fly tipped material, fridges, mattresses. The big thing that really got us started was a neighbour knocked on my door and said, ‘should we like get rid of all the litter and the fly tipping?’ We swept and we got all the litter tidied. And we got all the fly-tipping collected. And it kind of just has snowballed from there.
At first, we kind of just bought the cheapest things we could find. And we got plants donated – just from other people or cuttings or little things. We were using anything like upcycled and recycled. And then as the kind of project went on, we realised like there are some kind of infrastructure needs.
So, we found the Neighbourhood Investment Fund. And that's kind of where the big things came from. Like really big raised-beds, hardier plants, a lot of compost and a lot of soil. And that really encouraged us, I think, to keep going.
For me personally, it really gave me like a sense of belonging. And I've met like some really good friends now doing this. But it also gives me like a sense of pride and a sense of like ownership.
When I speak to other neighbours, people say the same thing. Like, ‘we're so proud we live in this space.’ It’s having that kind of safe space where they can go to. And retreat and relax and not think about the day-to-day.
And I think one of the coolest things is like a lot of the neighbours here have never gardened before. Like, we're all learning together. And we all enjoy growing different things.
As you go through the alleyway, it's not just one person's. It's everyone's. And you can see some fruit and veg. And you can see some flowers. And you can see some evergreens. There really is like something for everyone.”