Riverlution took a revolutionary approach to the Festival of Learning with an action-packed day of events in the Christchurch Red Zone on Saturday 7 September. The journey to get here has been long, and one of commitment, innovation and a lot of mahi from the community and a group of dedicated volunteers.
What started out as the Richmond Community Garden Trust in 2014 on a one-acre block of land bordering the city’s Red Zone is now a three-acre enterprise with a group of volunteers taking a holistic, sustainable and environmental approach to managing their land and activities. In 2021, LINZ (Land Information New Zealand) donated a house from the Red Zone to the charity, which was named Riverlution. The house now serves as a collaborative workspace for multiple non-profit organisations.
Riverlution projects include clean-ups, trapping projects, composting, Riverlution Precious Plastic, various educational and collaborative workshops, and they host a monthly Repair Café and other sustainable initiatives in the Riverlution Eco Hub building. The group also does an annual olive harvest from trees in the Ōtākaro Avon River Corridor and from properties of local residents, with the oil, pressed by the gardening team, available for purchase at the Hub’s Little Shop.
The native garden, mud house and potager gardens are open 24/7 to enable the community to access fresh food, and the collective welcomes input and engagement from a wide range of like-minded community initiatives.
Another recent activity is Precious Plastics, which has been a few years in the making and has enabled the collective to gather reusable plastics from across the city and transform plastic number 2 into pots for indoor plants, while work is also underway to transform plastic number 5 into a reusable product (plastic number 2 and 5 smaller than a yogurt pottle). The project works with a range of other groups, including Climate Action Campus who are featured later in this newsletter, with money made from the sales of pots being used to further fund community solutions.
During the festival event, a range of activities were held on site to share learnings and techniques with community members. It was a glorious day and over 100 people attended the event. Learning events on the day included weaving sessions where people were taught how to use willow, cracked willow and walnut to weave natural fences. Two natural fences were built on site with participants enjoying the opportunity to get hands on experience. Everyone loved watching the hazel fence take shape, and in just a few hours, a beautiful fence had been created to surround the seating area and give it a cosy vibe.
And, if you have ever had problems picking out and separating small seedlings ready for planting, then the gardening “pricking out and replanting” activity session would have helped solve those problems.
The white room, which is used for neurodiverse activities, featured an art cart and lessons were held on birch tapping, which is similar to making maple syrup but using birch trees. Hub Operations Manager Morgane Honore says one of the day’s highlights was the opening of the new Riverlution café. “The café is in a portacom on site, offering a social enterprise that helps fund Riverlution and which will enable our group to become independent and exit the requirement to access community funding. This then means that other initiatives can access some of the limited funding streams available to volunteer community groups in the city.”
During spring, the café will be open during weekends and Mondays and Wednesdays. “We’ve teamed up with local businesses providing organic kai and we’ll also work with Hohepa and MSD to provide work experience and employment opportunities for people in our community. Avebury House, a community house located close by, has offered us the use of their commercial kitchen which has been great. On the day of the festival event people said they loved the “one-stop shop” experience—dropping off their plastic 2 and 5, Tetra Pak, then grabbing a coffee and some kai, all while having learning options available,” Morgane says.
The Hub also has a stormwater and rain garden at their Riverlution Eco Park with tours available during the Festival.
“We are managing our greywater, rainwater and stormwater sustainably from the café so the learning festival provided an ideal opportunity to showcase how people can explore these options in their own gardens.”