We have a home.
We come from lineages of earth tending Ancestors.
Our practice is in reverence of those before us.
We have a wealth of experience in growing and managing land-based and urban greening projects, environmental education, food justice orgainsing and community building. We met at a black female and gender-non-confirming-led nature programme called Bloom. A heartfelt online space birthed by land practitioner Giselle Richeliu at the height of the 2020 pandemic, it continued as an in-person programme of events in 2021 curated by Idman Abdurahaman. The first-ever in-person session was led by Alexandra (Ali) Yellop, introducing us to the world of colonial botany. It was from there our friendship developed and in essence a community emerged, deepening connections between BPOC land workers across London. Through working in different parts of the horticulture and food sector, it was evident that what bonded us together was a genuine passion to share space, exchange learnings, and practice community care. Fast forward to 2023, that same desire drove us to go on our first self-organised study/research trip across the pond to Turtle Island aka the USA along with land-worker and herbalist Randa Toko. We went there with the intention to break bread, to witness and learn from radical black and indigenous-led farms and urban spaces. We’ll save more on that transformative chapter for another time...
It was a few months before this trip that the visualising of Earth Tenders began as Ali started to communicate with the previous land stewards about the possibility of becoming guardians of the space and during our trip to New York that turned into a tangible reality. Access to land is a prayer answered.
As we were on the cusp of a new phase, we were also (and still are) moving through immense collective grief witnessing the extinguishing of lives through the ongoing genocides in Palestine, Congo, Sudan, Haiti and beyond. It has remained pivotal to be a part of work directly involved in liberation struggles. Whilst experiencing the deteriorating conditions we are living under from the climate crisis, cost of living, housing crisis, health injustices and so forth, has only cemented the need to create more collective spaces for us to grieve, mourn, replenish, to heal ourselves and the land, to dream, to rest, to reimagine a different tomorrow.
A community garden has the capacity to hold all of that and then some. We are beyond excited to use this space as a site for exploration, connection and world-building. We also want to embrace and embody radical honesty, we are two black and mixed-heritage, working-class individuals balancing full-time work whilst managing an urban garden. Currently, we don’t have a solid source of income for the garden. Earth Tenders is a community interest company (CIC) and we are working hard towards securing funding and resources that will sustain and equip us to continue to provide free and low-cost activities and offerings to our communities, responding to their needs and wants.
If you have proximity to privilege and material wealth, consider supporting our project through donations. Your donations will go towards supporting our day-to-day operations, community events, producing educational materials and paying practitioners.
Beyond monetary donations - come share your skill sets, attend volunteer sessions, tell a friend about the Grower’s Club, sign up for our newsletter, connect us to your networks, recommend us for the job, amplify our work, SHARE SHARE SHARE!
We look forward to going on this journey with you all.
With love, infinite gratitude and solidarity.
Idman and Ali
