I first became involved with Sufra because of a training course with the Orchard Project, who were using Sufra’s garden to show how to prune and maintain fruit trees. Everyone was just amazed by the garden because it was thriving. There was something growing everywhere you looked, and I felt like Sufra had a lot of energy. So, I knew that after I finished that course, I wanted to volunteer at Sufra.

During the pandemic, a group of dog walkers approached Brent Council to improve the community growing space in Northwick Park and received funding to teach local people. That was when I heard about permaculture. It’s about learning from nature and mimicking that approach which I really liked. The course taught us about looking after the planet, looking after the environment and really understanding biodiversity and the old ways of agriculture, rather than trying to eliminate things with weed killer and pest control. I was able to take a nine-month course in permaculture design, and I decided to leave my job at the pharmacy and take some more courses.

As part of my second course with the Orchard project, we had to design our own forest garden and I asked Billy, the Sufra Garden Manager, if I could use a space at Sufra, and she told me about the space in front of the food bank. So I became a member of the Garden Steering group while I was doing the design and Sufra were very keen to get everyone's input into it. I did drawings of the garden of the growing space to scale and I bought them into the steering group meetings and everyone had a go at designing. I didn't expect Sufra as a charity to be putting that much effort into involving people. That was lovely. And then Billy asked me if I could do the same session with the Sufra staff. And once we’d put all the designs together, Sufra dedicated some budget towards plants and we implemented it with volunteers.

I think the steering groups are really organised and they're achieving a lot. There are a lot of dedicated people in that group. I was just shocked at how much effort the Sufra community were putting into the steering groups, but I liked turning up to the meetings because they were always trying to do something different, get everyone's opinions and look for solutions.

In particular, the session Billy organised to create tiles with stamps was fun and I’ve really enjoyed working with the front garden with the corporate volunteers. But I think the best thing for me has been seeing this garden implemented and that wouldn't have happened without the steering group and everyone's input.

Sufra are doing enough to start with by supporting these guests. They’re providing all these food parcels, but to go above and beyond and say, OK, we'd like a nice space to wait in and then to put that idea forward and actively talk about it through the steering groups. I've learned so much from the way they work that to get something done, you just have to meet halfway.

And they've supported me so much. It sounds like a cliche, but it has helped me with teamwork. Using those soft skills, like being patient with other people. When people are not agreeing with you, just listening to them and being patient and working together.

I think it's really important for Sufra to carry on growing food in the community garden. The concrete can be really depressing because it's really not helping with biodiversity and you need fresh air, and a calm space. But if you just go and sit in an area surrounded by plants then it calms you down.