Cultivating Wildness: Three Conservation Volunteers' Experiences of Participation in the Green Gym Scheme

Abstract

The Green Gym – a free scheme run by the British Trust for Conservation Volunteers – encourages people to become fitter and counter the negative impact of increasingly sedentary lifestyles through carrying out practical conservation tasks. This study aimed to identify what participation in one newly established Green Gym meant to three volunteers. A qualitative research design was used owing to the small sample available – two unemployed adults and a part-time community worker – at the time that the research was undertaken. Data were collected through participant-observation over four sessions, semi-structured interviews and the participants' visual notebooks. An iterative process of data coding, display in concept maps and interpretation generated themes and subthemes. In addition to improving fitness, the participants valued the scheme as a means of enhancing mental wellbeing, being stimulated by nature and enjoying social contact, and as a flexible way in which to attain a valued productive role. The findings suggest that Green Gyms can represent a form of mainstream volunteerism to which appropriate occupational therapy clients might be referred in the process of meeting a range of occupational needs. In particular, the flexibility and diversity of tasks at the Green Gym suggest that it has the potential to enable occupationally deprived individuals, including those who have experienced social exclusion through mental ill-health, to access a productive occupation in the community.