The Hip-Hop Garden programme aims to connect people with nature through popular Hip-Hop culture, which transcends language and cultural backgrounds. Hip-Hop culture shares many parallels with nature in its resilience and expression. The concept of "the rose that grew from concrete" aptly demonstrates the resilience and power of both.

The programme is delivered through five elements:
 

• Wellbeing • Food Growing + Cooking • Employment • Entrepreneurship • Event Management •

With 1, 5, 7, and 24-week programs.

Curated and delivered by the May Team, with over 60 years of combined experience in youth and community engagement.

The programme is inclusive and intergenerational.
We currently deliver across the UK, working in London and Bristol.
We are expanding the programme to other locations in the South West.

 

The environmental sector is the second least diverse, surpassed only by farming.
Currently, environmental youth programs are primarily delivered by large, white organisations without lived experience, inadvertently reinforcing concepts of dependency.
These programs often prioritise outcomes over participants' wellbeing—Hip-Hop takes a different approach.

 

Each element of HHG provides practical, affordable, and collective solutions for sustainable living. It challenges power structures that don't serve community interests, aligning with UN Sustainable Development Goals and Climate Emergency Declarations. All elements are scalable and create lasting impact.
 

Wellbeing addresses SDG No. 3:
Ensuring healthy lives and promoting well-being for all at all ages.

Employment & Entrepreneurship addresses SDG No. 1:
End poverty in all its forms everywhere.

Food addresses SDG No. 2:
End hunger, achieve food security, improve nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture.

Participants learn about growing and cooking plant-based food to improve their diets and understand its impact on their health. They also develop skills in growing and cooking plant-based food as a means of generating income through enterprise and employment. With 40% of consumers seeking plant-based alternatives to meat and dairy, and per capita meat consumption declining, the UK vegan food market is growing at a rate of 9.58%.
 

Hip-Hop serves as a framework for participants to express their creativity through performance and lyrics.
 

In the Community and Civic aspect, up to 20 stakeholders will participate in an interactive workshop.
This workshop aims to promote debate around existing youth provision, challenge preconceptions of young people from Marcus Lipton, and develop new partnerships to fund a more comprehensive HHG program at Marcus Lipton.