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  • I am in Brixton, South London, where  an urban farming event is taking place.

  • Let's check it out.

  • Very nice.

  • Once you have grown your own tomatoes  or cucumbers or whatever it is,

  • you can't really go back to eating  them from the supermarket.

  • The ones you buy at the supermarket, they don't taste like that.

  • Urban Growth is a social organization which runs weekly drop-in sessions for people looking to learn

  • how to grow their own vegetables, pick up general gardening tips and help keep their local space green.

  • Lots of people have come and learned skills, and then gone on to study further

  • and made gardening their career, which is lovely.

  • Over the past couple of years, asresult of the pandemic,

  • there's been a big increase in the number of people who are growing their own veg

  • or want to learn the skills of how  to grow their own vegetables,

  • and also how to do gardening, and how to do something  tangible that actually makes a difference.

  • With the exception of 2018, the number of hours volunteered at Urban Growth has increased every year since its founding.

  • In 2019, volunteer hours surged to more than  1,750, and that was before the pandemic.

  • Urban Growth says lockdowns and social restrictions in 2020 and 2021 piqued even more people's interests.

  • We have been inundated this year with requests  for us to help set up gardening clubs all over London actually,

  • and I think lots of people understand that people really want that and need that.

  • Why did you decide to come here today, Nadia?

  • So, I just moved very close by.

  • Why gardening?

  • A friend of mine had an allotmentwhich I have been a lot in the last

  • kind of six months and kind of gave me a gardening bug.

  • And in lockdown, I ordered some seedlings and grew  some stuff which was pretty unsuccessful,

  • so I was like maybe I'm doing something wrong. I also got made redundant recently,

  • so I'm like maybe I'll just do something completely different and retrain as something else.

  • I'd kind of been thinking about it for a while, and never really had the guts to actually do something different.

  • From urban farming workshops to  clothing swaps or vintage fairs,

  • events with sustainability at their  core are growing in popularity.

  • I spoke to Sabeha Mohamed at Eventbrite, a platform where event organisers can promote their sessions.

  • She told me that in the second quarter of  2021, more than 90,000 attendees participated

  • in events centered around recyclingupcycling, and other sustainable themes.

  • We are noticing a real trend in  sustainability events coming up.

  • This year we have seen our largest amount  of attendees for sustainable events,

  • more than doubling the  second quarter of last year.

  • The themes kind of vary between  sustainable fashion, growing your own food,

  • and so there is a wide breadth, but people are really becoming

  • more conscious of their impact on  the world and how they can do better.

  • Hannah Porter, who organizes workshops where  she teaches people how to mend their clothes,

  • has also experienced more interest in her work.

  • There has definitely been more people wanting to do workshops since the lockdown, which is really great.

  • But obviously with Covid, I had a load of workshops booked and I had to cancel pretty much all of them

  • because of the lockdown so then I ended up doing a lot of online  workshops where I would send packs out to people.

  • I found that really good, a lot of  people, I think because they were stuck at home

  • they really wanted to learn how to mend their clothing because they weren't able to go shopping.

  • So I saw a real rise in that sense.

  • What would you say to people who are thinking 'oh mending my clothes just sounds like a lot of work, why should I do it?'

  • I think what I would say to people is just think about the repercussions 

  • of throwing your clothes away and how the waste really does

  • impact the planet and everyone living on it.

  • Not only is it a really useful skill  to have, but it's also very mindful

  • and it can be quite therapeutic and relaxing  as well so it is good for your mind.

  • Because it's not just about fixingyou can make them more trendy.

  • That's it, exactly. So you can make them,

  • you can customize them as well so they are their own pieces.

  • The motivation behind attending these events varies. For some, it's about learning a new skill.

  • For others, it's about improving their mental health  or contributing to a more conscious planet.

  • But are sustainable events just having  a moment, or are they here to stay?

  • What's happened with the pandemic  is that it is has forced people to reflect

  • and be conscious about their impact in the world so I don't see these events going away.

  • I do actually see there  being a boom and whether they vary in terms

  • of sustainable fashion or climate change or our impact on food and wastage,

  • I think these events will continue for the future.

I am in Brixton, South London, where  an urban farming event is taking place.

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