For many years now, I have said that Global Generation has thrived in the slipstream of other people’s waste. Thanks to forward thinking property developers like British Land and Argent, we have been able to locate our community projects inside and adjacent to large scale construction projects. Inhabiting spaces that are usually out of bounds for community groups, means we are well placed to establish a circular culture which many in the construction world refer to as a circular economy.

Much of what I have brought to Global Generation’s work in London has roots in the group of islands 18,300 km across the seas that form Aotearoa New Zealand; the land where I was born. The Covid pandemic meant that what might have been a brief trip for me and my husband, Rod Sugden, to visit my 95-year-old mother turned into a five-month stay.

It’s early evening and I am sitting by the door in the Story Garden classroom as I listen to the words; “feel your feet on the ground, feel your breath, find a way to sit very still.” I feel my heart pounding and I focus on the words, my body, the feeling in the room. As the simple and gentle instructions keep coming, the room drops into a shared space of silence and I relax.