A PEACE garden aimed at bringing together people from different ethnic and cultural backgrounds has opened in Edinburgh following the far-right riots in England and Northern Ireland.
The new garden, built by the Bridgend Farmhouse community in the capital’s southside, opened on August 18 and was developed in partnership with numerous groups including Multi-cultural Family Base, Peace and Justice Scotland and Home Link Family Support.
Volunteers were key to completing the project on the edge of the Craigmillar and Insh estates, which includes numerous workshops, allotments growing fruit and vegetables, a bike hub, a café, offices, arts and woodwork spaces and even an eco-bothy.
Khalid Bashir, a community gardening coordinator at Bridgend Farmhouse originally from Sudan, said he hoped the garden would provide a space for people of many different nationalities to come together.
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“I first left Sudan to do a degree in engineering in China and I came to Scotland about 20 years ago to do a Masters in management at Herriot Watt,” he said.
“I am a Friend of the Sudanese School in Edinburgh and we have the kids round here at the community hub regularly.
“We respect all the cultures. The Sudanese children for example learn English, but they also learn their own Arabic language in the school because their parents don’t want them to forget their family language.
“We’ve already had different groups visiting including Polish, Syrians, Ukrainians and the Sudanese. They have given us ideas for the Peace Garden.
“It will be a great place for the New Scots to come together. We know these different groups are very interested in the Scottish culture as well as other cultures from around the world.”
John Knox, the chair of Bridgend Farmhouse, said the recent violence in England made fostering peace amongst different communities even more important.
“We see these horrible scenes in England and it shows we have to work hard to keep the peace’, he said.
“It’s important that community organisations like ours do this work, especially in the cities where there are so many different types of communities and where access to spaces and to land is more difficult.
“The peace garden will be a part of that effort to build intercultural relationships.
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“It’s a new project and its real with rocks and plants and flowers and bushes. We aim to help everyone realise that the different cultures and very valuable and we want to celebrate them.”
Another regular volunteer, Maryam, said they had transformed a once “messy” area of the garden into something unique and peaceful.
She came to Edinburgh after her husband had political difficulties with the regime in Iran.
“I first came to Bridgend with friends and I loved the place and agreed to volunteer,” she said.
“I’ve been here about a year and I do gardening and working in the kitchen and woodwork.
“I’ve lived in Edinburgh for 20 years. The longer I work here, the more interesting I find the community.
“The peace garden used to be a messy place, but it has become a very beautiful area. It has become very peaceful and mindful.
“Bridgend and the peace garden are very unique. A lot of people in Edinburgh don’t know about it and I think they would like it if they knew what a nice peaceful place it is.”
Community engagement coordinator Zoe Murdoch said the garden was a small antidote to the false narratives being spread about immigration.
“Watching the riots on the TV, it feels like this place is an oasis of peace and calm,” she said.
“At least, here you feel you are doing something to kick back against all the hate and misinformation that have been going on.
“This is community-owned and it is run by people, for people, regardless of ethnicity and religion.
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“The peace garden will be a place for New Scots and people who, for example, have escaped from conflict, can come.
“We want this to be a relaxed happy space where people can bring their kids and celebrate their cultures and talk to other people about their shared experiences, bring people together to celebrate the things we have in common - food, music, kids playing, family connection , being in nature and creativity.
“We saw a group of Ukrainian people who had been living on a boat in Edinburgh for ages as there was no accommodation for them; we started working with them. But after a while they were split up and dispersed over Edinburgh and we lost contact with a lot of them.
“So they kind of remade their community, and then lost it again. If we can offer a point of permanence, consistency , unity and stability for them, that is very exciting.
‘We still have lots to do, we are going to get QR codes with people’s stories of what peace means to them and have them embedded around the garden.”
The Bridgend Farmhouse regularly hosts drop-in sessions and workshops with more details available on their website: www.bridgendfarmhouse.org.uk
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