At GAP Ireland, we like September. The days still have some of the warmth of summer, but the light is beginning to change. Mornings feel cooler, the evenings come a little earlier, and we can harvest our blackberries.
For us, September is a time when nature is changing, adapting and preparing for what comes next. And it’s a month of new beginnings for people: Children return to school and people get back into their routines. And at GAP we get busy again, after the relative calm of summer.
We can see the transition into autumn particularly clearly in our community gardens. And we can see that growth does not happen in a straight line: There are times for planting and times for harvesting, times of abundance and times of rest. And there are times to care for the relationships beneath the surface: the links between soil, plants, insects and people.
Growing for recovery in Ballymun
This September, we are putting extra emphasis on the GLAS community gardens’ ability to help people to grow.
Our ‘Growing for Recovery programme’, in partnership with Dublin Northwest Partnership and Ballymun Local Drugs Task Force, brings people together in the garden to explore the connections between nature, wellbeing and belonging.
The programme is part of Recovery Month, and is a four-week workshop series supporting people affected by addiction, along with their families and anyone looking for opportunities to improve their wellbeing.
We hope that participants learn practical gardening skills and take part in activities designed to encourage connection, confidence and a sense of community. The idea is that participants will discover something that gardeners have understood for generations: looking after a living thing can help us to feel rooted ourselves.
There is something powerful about putting your hands into the soil, watching a seed become a plant, and sharing something you have grown. Or simply sitting in a garden with other people.
In our GLAS gardens, you don’t have to have your life in order, or answers for everything life throws at you. In fact, we invite people to come to the garden to find new questions and new answers. Our GLAS gardens are a place to begin.
September is a month to get moving
September also brings us into European Mobility Week, taking place from 16–22 September. This year’s theme is “Mobility for Everyone”, with a focus on intergenerational fairness. The campaign asks us to think about whether our transport systems work for people of different ages, abilities, circumstances and stages of life, and whether the choices we make today create a better world for those who come after us.
This is an important way of thinking about sustainable transport. In September, we are being invited to think about mobility as more than a question about moving cars, buses and bicycles more efficiently and safely.
Because mobility is really about people: Can a child walk safely to school? Can an older person reach the places they need without depending on a car? Can someone without access to a car participate fully in community life? Can we design our streets and neighbourhoods so that walking, cycling and public transport become natural and enjoyable choices?
The answers are not only about individual behaviour. They are about the places we create together.
September gives us an opportunity to ask what our communities could look like if getting around was easier, healthier and more inclusive for everyone; a question that is at the heart of our Just Maps programme.
Back to action
September is also the time to return to school. For children and teachers, a new school year means new routines, new friendships and new opportunities to learn. At GAP, we see environmental education as something that works best when it moves out of the classroom and into people’s everyday lives.
In our work with schools, we encourage teachers and students to have a new look at the spaces around them. We show them that a school garden can become a place to discover where food comes from, and that a park can become a living classroom. And we allow students to discover that a walk can become an opportunity to notice birds, trees and insects, and mushrooms.
- That’s why, for instance, we are organising a Mushroom Identification Walk & Talk in Monaghan, on 23 September, offering an opportunity to look more closely at the fungi that appear at this time of year.
- And in Athenry, our Community Climate Action Training begins on 17 September, bringing local people together to learn, connect and develop practical ways to act for climate and biodiversity.
A season for beginning again
When we talk about new beginnings, we don’t mean that we must change everything; After all, nature itself does not work that way either: A seed becomes a plant gradually. A garden develops over many seasons. A community grows through repeated acts of care.
Similarly, meaningful environmental change is built through the combination of many small actions, taken by many people, over time.
So perhaps September is a good month to begin again.
- To walk somewhere instead of driving.
- To spend an hour in a garden, just watching.
- To notice what is changing in the natural world.
- To try and reduce your use of plastic.
- To join a community group.
- To ask how our neighbourhood could work better for everyone.