How your donation makes a difference.
The Findhorn Foundation is a spiritual community, ecovillage and international centre for holistic education demonstrating and providing inspiration for real change. Our aim is to model a positive and sustainable future for people and planet.
Thanks to our supporters we have been able to expand our work by:
- developing our facilities to make them fully accessible
- building bridges to the wider community
- further reducing our ecological footprint
- providing bursaries to those who would otherwise have been unable to participate in the programmes and learning provided at Findhorn
- replacing old caravans with ecomobiles for staff housing
- developing new growing techniques in our gardens
- our donor newsletter
developing our facilities to make them fully accessible:
Legacy with the raised garden in the foreground
In 2011 we completed Legacy, a fully accessible and ecologically sustainable workshop space. Accessible front and back and with a fully accessible toilet, the Legacy building is surrounded by a beautiful wildlife garden that also includes a raised garden that allows wheelchair users access to gardening at a comfortable height.
In 2011 we began the upgrade of our beloved Community Centre. Thanks to a grant of £10,000 from Awards for All and donations from our supporters, we have made our toilets more comfortable and accessible for all, including those with visual or mobility difficulties, as well as adding baby changing facilities.
building bridges to the wider community:
Our Building Bridges team launched two new pilots in 2011 and 2012 specifically designed to support vulnerable people from the local community.
The Youth Empowerment Project (YEP) brought eight 16-19 year olds into the community on a weekly basis for 12 weeks in a specially designed programme that brought them into contact with the rhythms of community life, as well as with nature through projects in Cullerne Gardens. This project was a great success with two of the youth finding employment, one who returned to school, and two who subsequently took part in Experience Week. A second programme is planned for 2012.
In 2012, Building Bridges also launched the Recovery Discovery programme that supports adults in transition from addiction within a similarly structured programme to the YEP programme. Later in 2012 the Co-Ability Programme will be launched, which is designed to support adults with varying degrees of visual, physical or mental impairment.
further reducing our ecological footprint:
In 2010 we installed a new 250kW biomass heating system. Fuelled by woodchips from local sawmills, it now heats and powers many of the buildings in the central area including the Community Centre, the Universal Hall, the Guest Lodge and the Hot Tub. This installation reduces our dependency on oil and gas, lowers our carbon footprint, and has reduced our heating bills by £15,000 in the first year.
providing bursaries to those who would otherwise have been unable to participate in the programmes and learning provided at Findhorn:
Our bursary programme enables people who would otherwise be unable to afford to attend our residential programmes, to come and benefit from our programme schedule. In 2011 we were able to give £46,266 of bursaries to 247 people, including students and people from developing nations.
replacing old caravans with ecomobiles for staff housing:
In 2011, thanks to the legacy from Tom Welch, we were able to complete a dream of building two new ecomobiles for much needed staff housing. Designed and built by Jason Caddy’s GreenLeaf Design (Jason is the grandson of Findhorn Foundation co-founders Eileen and Peter Caddy), the beautiful new buildings have met our needs on all levels: quality, timescale, costs, sustainability as well as providing spiritual and physical comfort to the new occupants.
developing new growing techniques in our gardens:
A purpose built home for the Park Garden team has manifested over the last 12 months. Moontree now stands alongside the greenhouses and cold frames, and provides a space for the garden team to host classes, and preserve fruit and herbs.
Thanks to a European Voluntary Service grant, we hosted four students in our gardens in 2011. In Park Garden, Mikkel Funnemark from Norway helped develop our bee project, establishing beneficial plants, and creating nesting boxes and hives in the garden. The result is three new colonies of bees.
And his compatriot, Tuva Engebretsen, helped expand our edible landscape through a project that saw numerous apple, pear, plum, cherry and cobnut trees planted throughout the Park over the last 12 months.
In Cluny garden Bulgarian student, Miho Mihov created a demonstration garden of homegrown food; while Hungarian, Barbara Lakatos helped establish a chicken tractor in Cullerne Garden.
