We are a group of 16-18 year old students with additional needs in an inner city special school in the north east of England. We want to create a sensory garden for our younger students and community to visit. We need help to gather tools, plants, and sculptures. We would like to build a fairy and gnome villages within the garden, to help us with our imagination and language work. Some of us learn by our senses, and so plants of different textures and smells would calm us and encourage us to communicate with others. The community would be welcome to visit and help us with the garden, so widening our school community and us learning from them.
We also would like to widen our horizon and visit northern Europe, look at its gardens like Monet's and be inspired, live together and enhance our life skills by doing things for ourselves. Some of us have never had the opportunity to leave our immediate area due to our social circumstances. We need to learn to tolerate others, cook for ourselves and live in harmony without our parents and carers doing everything for us. Please help us sow seeds to develop in life experience and by leaving a lasting sustainable garden for the community and other students to enjoy .