Small changes in your daily life can have a big impact on your future health and wellbeing. This is the message of the NHS’ Healthier Together campaign, and we couldn’t agree more – eating well and learning new skills is why we created our Sustainable Lives programme for adults.
Our Landscapes Officer Steve makes up one half of the friendly learning team behind the Sustainable Lives programme, alongside Steph. Between them they cover employability, cooking, digital skills, gardening and landscaping.
Steve is involved in all things outdoors on our 7-acre site. He works with volunteers and adult learners to help maintain and develop our land.
“We educate learners across the whole range of horticultural skills and tasks. The jobs we do change a lot from day to day, but it’s all working outdoors on the land.” – Steve
Being outdoors in nature has always been Steve’s passion. Before working for Newquay Orchard, he completed a number of courses with the Royal Horticultural Society, and studied environmental conservation.
Now, he gets to combine that with helping people and nurturing community – one of his favourite parts of the job:
“One of the best things is, we work with a whole variety of people from all across the community… you see friendships develop. Bringing them here, we pull down those barriers, we remove any challenges as best we can.” – Steve
While Steve accompanies learners out on site, Steph leads on employability, cooking and digital skills, and is a driving force behind designing and delivering the course… using horticulture to explore career development, learning, motivation, personal growth and supporting mental health.
“I complete reviews with learners, and teach all day on Tuesday and Thursday. I also attend events to recruit learners and design the programme of work we will be delivering.” – Steph
A day in the life of an adult learner
Steve runs us through a typical day in the life of one of our Sustainable Lives students:
“A typical day can change quite a lot, but it is all horticulture-based, working outdoors on the land.
So I would meet the students, we’d go through a recap of what we did last time, lay out what we’re going to do in this session, then go out and do some hands-on training.
Then they would come back and write it all up or fill out forms in their workbooks for me to review their progress and celebrate what’s been achieved.”
A Sustainable Lives course runs just one day a week, for sixteen weeks – meaning it can fit perfectly alongside your part-time work or family commitments. Just one day a week reconnecting with nature and community can make a huge difference to your wellbeing – take a look at Sascha’s learning journey at Newquay Orchard, and why he chose to continue on as a Lead Volunteer.
Open day: get a taste of Newquay Orchard
To find out how we can help you lead a happier, healthier lifestyle, come along to our next open day on 25th November, 10am – 1pm, where we will be exploring the grounds, foraging for food and cooking up a treat in our teaching kitchen!
Let’s learn how to get healthier, together!
