Paul Aiken
While London is blessed with a wealth of beautiful parks, plenty of young people from the city never get to experience the countryside in all its glory.
When he moved to England in 1997 and started doing community work, Paul Aiken - who grew up surrounded by natural beauty in Jamaica – became acutely aware of this.
So, in 2004, he and five other like-minded people - all from very different backgrounds – decided to set up a charity called Global Generation with the aim of giving inner city kids more access to nature.
Seven years on and the charity has worked with more than a thousand young people based in London, some of who are from youth offending programmes or homeless shelters. It has shown them nature in its most tranquil state and taught them how to look after land, grow produce, sell produce, install renewable energy systems, build relationships, and look at their inner selves.
Respecting the land
One of Global Generation’s main activities has always been running regular trips to Pertwood Organic Farm in Wiltshire, where young people bond with the earth and each other, get to work on the land and eat local food.
Paul says the effect of the trips is phenomenal. “Many of them have never been to the countryside, so it is a real joy taking them. Some turn up with their rucksacks full of junk food and we take that away from them and give them a wholesome diet using food from the local community including butchers and fisheries. By day two, their whole attitude and disposition begins to change.
“I’ve seen tough streetwise boys lie down in the grass listening to the wind as though they’re in a whole new dimension,” says Paul, joyfully. “We’ve had African kids break down on camp, because it reminds them of the villages they’ve come from. There was a girl from Uganda who melted when we took a group of them to see the sunset through the fields. She said she hadn’t experienced that since she left home.”
The fact that kids of different ethnicities mix so well with each other under the Global Generation umbrella is particularly important to Paul, now aged 55. “The ability to draw together a wide cross-section of people is beautiful, and I believe it’s necessary for social regeneration,” he says warmly.
While the camps have been a crucial component of what this charity gives to the next generation, there’s a whole lot more it offers besides.
Over the last couple of years, the young people have created award-winning gardens in disused spaces back home in Kings Cross, in which they have grown food for restaurants, such as Acorn House, Konstam, and the cafe at the Guardian Newspaper offices.
They have also learned how to install renewable energy systems on local buildings for companies like The Office Group, created gardens at local schools, been given expert leadership and public speaking training, and enjoyed poetry, music, carving and photography projects.
“The camps will always be important, but the gardens and our other projects can make us some money, so we are keen to keep diversifying,” offers Paul. “We’ve been more socially enterprising in the last few years and we now sell the produce we grow with the kids, as well as the things they make, such as plant pots and garden accessories.”
The team has been lucky with receiving grants in the past, including a substantial sum from the Big Lottery’s Local Food Fund in May 2009 which brought in nearly £350,000, and a number of grants from Camden Council, The City Bridge Trust, the Home Office and more.
Sustaining the business
But Paul feels that grants won’t necessarily last forever, though, so Global Generation is increasingly looking at ways to make money via introducing a more formal social enterprise arm to the charity.
To bring in another source of income, they’ve also opened themselves up to a number of ‘corporate’ days over the last couple of years. These see companies pay for their staff to come and work with young people on projects as part of their Corporate Social Responsibility strategies.
The charity’s impressive work has seen the team win a range of awards in recent years, including a Camden in Bloom award, an Estates Gazette Green Award, and the prestigious London Business Award 2010 for best regeneration project.
Additionally, the organisation’s project manager, Neerja Vashishta – one of its four paid members of staff – was recently crowned one of Striding Out’s Future 100 social entrepreneurs in 2010 for her development work with Global Generation.
“It is good to see our projects gaining so much attention,” says Paul. “Teachers are looking at our model and we even featured in an American TV documentary earlier this year.
“I would like to see the model spread to other communities now. I think the global side of our name will bear fruit in time. And, maybe if I go back to Jamaica, I can start Global Generation there. Every community needs something like this.