E-Co-Flourishing at Cowley’s Asian Cultural Centre
On Sunday 21st July, some of our YPAG and YPAG leaders hosted an E-Co-Flourishing stall in Cowley’s Asian Cultural Centre. We had a great opportunity to share our work with members of the community and include them in some of our research into ecology and wellbeing. The E-Co-Flourishing project is research surrounding whether both nature and humans can benefit from their relationship with each other to create collective positive wellbeing. This research includes ‘living labs’ to involve different communities and spaces and learn from the relationship between them and nature.
The event was in a beautiful restructured Victorian chapel, where lots of other researchers and charities displayed their work on topics such as neuroscience and mental health; they also provided lovely Asian cuisine. Our stall held activities such as high-tech mini microscopes to see the tiny creatures and beautiful plant life where we might not expect it, encouraging the public to look for nature all around! We had different plant samples from rosemary to honeysuckle to quiz and educate both ourselves and others at the event on the marvellous uses of plants in everyday life, from cooking to haircare. We even had a small tank with some tiny insects to spot, including a spider.
We encouraged discussion and story sharing using a large map of Oxford, asking the public to share their favourite green spaces and to add stickers to show where this local community enjoyed nature together. Using these discussions, we gained great insight into what nature means, and how they enjoy the local area as a community. We learned some new perspectives of nature from a group of women, with help from a handy translator! In particular, we explored their first memories of nature which included climbing trees in Pakistan, living off the land and growing up with animals, which was very different from their lives now in Oxford. We also explored how people perceived nature and wellbeing, and overall got positive feedback that nature is positive for mental health. Unfortunately, we were also told that nature is not always accessible, especially to people with health conditions, and this is something we can look at more during our research. During the day we gained feedback that nature meant a lot to people, with themes of beauty and community coming up a lot. Many people reminisced about going to parks as children and getting active in nature. Overall, it was excellent to share our research with people, it was heart-warming to see how much people value the world around them and how curiosity for nature never wanes.