Community Wellbeing

Soulful Places Wellbeing Festival

Glengall Wharf Garden, Peckham, London · 2025

A wellbeing day at Glengall Wharf Garden for Black African and Caribbean elders, with food, storytelling, self-care, and time in the garden.

At a glance

30 Black African and Caribbean elders attended
Hosted by Glengall Wharf Garden in Peckham
Included garden tours, urban farming, self-care, storytelling, and shared meals

Glengall Wharf Garden Garden events and workshops

Project overview

On the 17th of September 2025, ACHFN hosted the Soulful Places Wellbeing Festival at Glengall Wharf Garden in Peckham, London. The event brought together 30 Black African and Caribbean elders for a day shaped around land, culture, food, memory, and care.

Glengall Wharf Garden hosted the gathering in its community growing space. Participants toured the garden and learned about urban farming, beekeeping, poultry, and the culturally appropriate vegetables growing on site.

Dr Claire Holder, former chair of the Notting Hill Carnival Committee, joined the day to speak about Carnival history, Black liberation, and the cultural resistance that shaped one of Britain’s most important Caribbean public celebrations.

The programme also included a self-care workshop where elders made body care products, alongside storytelling, reflection, and shared meals. SUBNET and Excel Beyond Barriers supported the event, and Toyin Dawudu documented the day as visual storyteller through photography and video.

Why this mattered

Gave elders a welcoming space to spend time together, share memories, and talk about culture, migration, land, and wellbeing.
Connected the garden’s food-growing work with practical activities including beekeeping, poultry, and culturally appropriate vegetables.
Linked personal memory with the wider history of Notting Hill Carnival, Black liberation, and cultural resistance.
Recorded the gathering through Toyin Dawudu’s photography and video so the day could become part of ACHFN’s public project archive.

Context

Glengall Wharf Garden is a community growing space on the east side of Burgess Park, with food beds, a forest garden, beehives, chickens, ponds, and regular volunteer sessions.

That setting mattered. The festival was not held in a generic event room; it took place in a working community garden where elders could see, touch, taste, and talk about food, land, and care in a practical way.

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