Connected Communities: A Walk Against Loneliness
Cultural bridges for a more regenerative relationship with nature
My work as a team member of Colab Dudley and as a black woman from Dudley is to create cultural bridges between communities. The aim is through a variety of activities and artistic expressions to promote diversity, allowing cultural exchange, and in addition to bring people together by building kindness relationships.One of the problems we face among our community is loneliness, more specifically with lone parents immigrants whose family are back home. For the last couple of years I have been organising different cultural activities with the aim to tackle issues such as loneliness and well-being in our community. However, with the outbreak of COVID 19, all activities were cancelled leaving the black community more lonely than ever before.
Black single parents are more likely to suffer depression loneliness and anxiety during the pandemic than other ethnic groups
Lockdowns are measures that helps slowing down the pandemic, however it comes at a high risk for vulnerable groups. Most women from my community like me, are single parents with no family or network support around. When we went into lockdown, the feeling was of complete abandonment in a strange land, and no one to turn on to. I couldn’t stop thinking on the effects of the pandemic on the mental state of teenagers from my community whose parents are key workers. Some of them had to stay home alone with nothing to do, whilst their parents were working long shifts. I was grateful to be home with my children knowing they were safe, and at the same time I was feeling sad and guilty for these children.
A place to reconnect
Nature walks “saved” me and my kids from complete boredom at home during the pandemic. When we were allowed to exercise outdoors, the Wrens Nest Nature Reserve was our place to heal and reconnect. Instead of staying home stressing about the madness that was happening in the world, we would turn off our phones and go for walks to connect with the nature and disconnect from reality. Sometimes we would go as far as taking our shoes off to do grounding or rehearsing the “OA” dance, imagining that we could travel to another dimension with no COVID19.
The Wrens Nest Nature Reserve
I found out about the Wrens Nest Nature Reserve, researching online appealing places to go for nature walk close to home. The reserve is considered to be one of the most important geological locations in Britain. It’s famous for its large numbers of preserved Silurian limestone deposited approximately 428 million years ago when the area now Dudley was covered by a shallow tropical see. The limestone contains the remains of ancient see creatures that inhabited the area during a period in geological history known as the “Silurian.” In addition to the geological features a special limestone fauna and flora has established itself at the reserve, this includes many species of plants, invertebrates and several species of bat over winter caverns.
Nature is not “closed” it’s time for collective resilience
After some restrictions were lifted, I tried to find solutions for the community to safely come together respecting the government guidelines. As day trips to outdoor spaces were allowed, I thought it would be a good idea to organise a walk with the children from my community to the Wrens Nest nature reserve. Because is five minutes away from where I live, it would be a good place to take them for a nature walk, and to breath away from the lockdown.
When searching online for activities to do during the walk, I came across some articles that states that people of colour in UK spend less time in nature than white communities, and that there is a stereotype that black people don’t “do” nature. As a black women that loves spending time in nature this shocked me. Nature has always played an important role in my life, whenever I feel stressed, I go for a walk to connect and relax, not to say that I spent most of my childhood back home in Cape Verde with my peers hiking the tallest mountains in Santo Antao island.
Haw can be stated that black people don’t do nature when most of us comes from rural areas?
Out of curiosity, I did a research on the “cause” of this stereotype; what I found was that; people of colour some haw loses the connection with nature when travel to western countries, due to the fact that they often report experiences of racism or being fearful or feeling isolated or feeling more visible when there are fewer numbers of other people of colour. I thought to my- self, “haw many times I felt uncomfortable for being the only black women in a room full of people; haw many times I felt uncomfortable for being the only black women in a plane flying from UK to my own country;” I didn’t feel uncomfortable because I was there, but because other black people were not!
Walking the Walk — Contemplating Nature
“No one should feel isolated or unable to make meaningful connections with others because they feel excluded by their ethnicity, or anything else”.
I wanted the children from my community to connect and experience nature, and I wasn’t surprised when I send invitations for the walk, the parents wanted to join in.
We experienced silence and we re- connect
The timing could not have been better for the group first nature walk experience. The air was pleasant, and the sun was shining. We left home around 10am, and while headed into the woods, we could hear the melodic chirping of birds replacing the noisy cars.
Parents were responsible for supervising their children, making shore they were keeping a safe distance. For the first hour we experienced silence and we reconnect with nature. We hear the sound of the woods and no phones were aloud.
We found shapes, colours, and patterns
The site was rich in wild flowers and some very interesting rock formations. Under the rocks we found many different types and shapes of wild mushroom. Within a minute we found our first fossil, and as we continue with our adventure, we started looking for living things. We saw a squirrel, and one of the girls took a picture of what she described to be two human trees embracing each other, reminding us that that trees are living things too.
After two hours of walking and explore, the children started to become tired, we decided it was time to go. As we headed home, we talked about the experience of being connected with nature, the smells that reminded us where we came from, and the connections we create with our children trough nature.
“I really feel free”
When I asked the group how did it feel to spend time in nature together? This was some of the answers:
“A feeling of enthusiasm and freshness”
“I feel more energetic”
it remind me my home town, I never expected to find a place like this in Dudley ”
“I liked the trees and doing cartwheel on the fields and dig the fossils with mum’
At the end of the walk I was pleasantly surprised to see how excited the group was, and the amount of interest and energy parents and children put on this adventure. The interaction between people and nature was amazing, it made me realise how much the connection with nature is important to form unity in the community, and for people to feel the sense of belonging to the place they choose to call home.
