The Butterfly Farmer Project
Through our connections with Sodexo Group, a global leader in sustainable food, we heard about the Seeds of Hope Project.
This project focuses on building connections within local communities, between individuals, small-scale food producers, schools and businesses, all working towards helping those in need. Speaking to Christine Leslie from Sodexo (who we have worked with before and knows about our love to be involved in any environmentally driven initiatives), we were introduced to Tom Delahunt. Tom is an author and keen researcher, facilitator and collaborator within the Faculty of Medicine, Health and Social Care and is currently a senior lecturer and doctoral candidate at Canterbury Christchurch University in Kent. He is currently leading a project to work with pupils from schools around Kent to create butterfly (sanctuaries) gardens to increase the native insects in the wild.
This idea came ahead of his new book, The Butterfly Farmer, which aims to help explain ‘change’ to children, especially SEND children. As he was forming the idea of his butterfly story, he was shocked to find out that more than half of the species of butterflies in the country are suffering from long-term decline, so, from this, he formed a plan for The Butterfly Farmer Project. Tom wanted to gather like-minded adults and children together and try to increase butterfly numbers in the wild by encouraging schools to plant butterfly gardens. Whilst doing this, he also wanted to give children a better understanding of butterflies and the important role they play in plant reproduction, whilst also using the concept of change – caterpillar to butterfly, child to adult - to help guide children through their own growth and change as they move from primary to secondary. After meeting Tom, we were extremely excited to be invited onto the project.
From our first meeting with Tom and his colleague, Roland Brown, who owns Heart’s Delight Farm (part of the Natural England's Countryside Stewardship scheme), we knew we wanted to be a part of this amazing project. Both Tom and Roland came into the Year 5 classroom and spoke to the children about the project; it was a very informative session, and the children received answers to their many questions about butterfly anatomy, behaviours and habitats. Since the visit, we had a Year 5 class trip to the Enchanted Gardens, run by Donna Truwhyte, teaching the children about how to plant and maintain a successful butterfly garden; the importance of ‘host’ plants for the caterpillars to feed off, butterflies to lay their eggs on, along with the nectar rich pants for the butterflies to feed on. It was a truly fabulous day, and the children were inspired to plan, plant and grow their own butterfly garden.
We also had a visit to Heart Delight’s Farm to see how Roland manages his woodland, meadows and orchards - all his farming decisions are made with their effect on benefitting nature as a primary consideration. The knowledge he shared was extremely helpful, and we will be using it to improve our wild meadow area to encourage even more native plants & flowers, plus the visiting wildlife. We thoroughly enjoyed being led around his wonderful wild meadow, identifying native plants, and his ancient woodland, again, identifying the characteristics that define an 'ancient' woodland. Roland was so knowledgeable; it was a fantastic day, and we stayed longer than planned.
We are so excited about this project and the focus that Tom has put on the children’s involvement. We have already dedicated our main display board in the entrance of the school, and it is quickly being filled with wonderful pictures, models, poems and facts about butterflies.
From this amazing project, we are currently planting our own butterfly garden, which will be dedicated to Jane Goodall after her sad passing. The children have been working so hard on preparing the ground, planting and watering the many shrubs and flowers - it is going to be beautiful!
As Jane always said, "What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of a difference you want to make!"