Mater Green Gym: You Can Do It Award Winners 2007
7 August 2007
The Mater Green Gym project has been successful in the B&Q ‘You Can Do It’ awards 2007, receiving materials money to rejuvenate the grounds of their Day Hospital.
The Mater Green Gym is delivered by Conservation Volunteers Green Gym team in partnership with the Mater Hospital Occupational Therapy, Nursing and Health Promotion staff. The Mater Green Gym team are individuals who have been referred to and are being treated by psychiatric services in North & West Belfast.
Through the ‘You Can Do It Award’, the Mater Green Gym will rejuvenate the gardens within the grounds of the Mater Day Hospital in North Belfast. The Day Hospital is used as part of the recovery process for patients from the psychiatric ward, an intermediary step between full-time care and permanent discharge for the services. The gardens are currently in a bad state of repair, having been neglected for many years. It currently consist of areas of cut grass and overgrown shrub beds, neither of which are of interest to look at or functional to the Hospital users.
The Mater Green Gym will use the Award to revive the gardens by clearing pathways, developing seating areas, planting sensory beds for therapeutic value, and the creation of a fruit and vegetable garden with raised beds for everyone to use. Composting bins will be installed to encourage organic gardening and the recycling of household waste, along with water butts to collect rainwater.
The B&Q ‘You Can Do It’ Awards form one element of the company’s long established community programme. The awards aim to play a key part in helping local communities create inclusive and sustainable facilities to be proud of. This year, 19 projects across the UK and Ireland have been awarded £5,000 (€7,500) of B&Q products, and 3 projects have been awarded a special award of £2,500 each to help create inclusive and sustainable facilities that will benefit their local community.
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| Green Gym |
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| The B&Q 'You Can Do It' Awards |