Friday 26th March 2021
Wild Cat Wilderness, Riverview Park, London, SE6 4PL
Come on our brilliant orcharding course and become an accredited community orchardist.
*NB our dates depend on Covid 19 restrictions being lifted.*
On our course you’ll learn everything you need to know about designing and managing community orchards. You will benefit from our expert team of experienced orchardists who have already helped 75 students gain the Certificate. The course starts in March and finishes in January next year. We have adapted the course so that most of the dates are over the summer, because of Covid 19. By coming on this course, you’ll be joining our supportive network of orchardists and may have the chance to come on additional work days, e.g. apple harvesting or maintaining orchards.
Are you eligible?
This level 3 training is free of charge, in exchange for 3 days of volunteering with The Orchard Project or Wildcat Wilderness. However, you must be able to answer ‘yes’ to the following six questions:
- Are you able to make all the dates below? All the venues are in Lewisham so you should consider how you would travel to them if there were lockdown restrictions. You must be able to attend the whole course to be able to get the Certificate.
- Can you show that you are unemployed or ‘economically inactive’ and do you plan on getting a job or attending another training course after this one? About 1/3 of previous course participants found this course helpful in finding paid employment or further training.
- Do you have the right to live and work in the UK? If you are an EU citizen, do you have settled or pre-settled status?
- Do you think you could handle a level 3 course? It’s similar to doing an A level and you will be assessed on 11 pieces of homework. However, we can be flexible here. If it’s not for you, you could attend without being assessed for the Certificate.
- Are you able to do basic tasks on a computer? You need to be able to write and save documents, upload them to our online platform – details would be given. You should be able to do simple internet research, e.g. on the history of an orchard. N.B., the first day of the course, 26th March, is specifically designed to help make sure you can do this.
- Would you be really keen to learn loads about orchards, including how to design your own one?
If you can answer yes to all of these questions, please register your interest on Eventbrite and we will be in touch with you.
Economically Inactive or Unemployed
We’re really keen for this training to help people get a job, ideally in the community food growing sector. In fact our funding is based on this, so it’s important to us that you are genuinely interested in getting work or going into a higher level training course once you’ve been with us.
Economically Inactive: You are neither employed nor unemployed. It includes people who want a job but have not been seeking work. You will not be receiving benefit and are supporting yourself financially through a third party such as family members or savings. Some reasons why you might be economically inactive are: you’ve retired early, you look after children, you’re a lone parent, you are long-term sick or you’re looking after the home. If you are economically inactive you will need to get a verification from a third party or family member.
Unemployed: You are without a job, want a job, and have actively sought work. You must be registered with a government agency such as the DWP or job centre. You will need to show some kind of proof of this such as a recent letter or screenshot of your Universal Credit statement.
Course details
Every day of the course runs from 10am – 4pm. Please make sure you arrive promptly for each session. Some dates may need to be rescheduled because of pandemic restrictions. We will aim to complete the course in this time span and we will try to stick with Fridays for our training days.
Key Dates
Why do we have the selection criteria?
We’re very pleased to be receiving funding from the European Social Fund and the government (via Paddington Development Trust) to help people find ways into work or into more advanced training. We have set some ambitious targets for this. If you are looking for a way to be more employable in the community food sector and have the makings of a tree geek, this course could be for you!
