{"id":13306,"date":"2020-03-05T09:48:00","date_gmt":"2020-03-05T09:48:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.powertochange.org.uk\/?post_type=blog_post&p=13306"},"modified":"2023-03-08T09:00:00","modified_gmt":"2023-03-08T09:00:00","slug":"celebrating-the-women-leading-community-business-nat-mady-hackney-herbal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.powertochange.org.uk\/news\/celebrating-the-women-leading-community-business-nat-mady-hackney-herbal\/","title":{"rendered":"Celebrating the women leading community business: Nat Mady, Hackney Herbal"},"content":{"rendered":"

[et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ admin_label=”section” _builder_version=”4.16″ global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_row admin_label=”row” _builder_version=”4.16″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.16″ custom_padding=”|||” global_colors_info=”{}” custom_padding__hover=”|||”][et_pb_text admin_label=”Text” _builder_version=”4.16″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” global_colors_info=”{}”]The history of International Women\u2019s Day<\/a> dates back 108 years with the first in 1909, when the Socialist Party of America celebrated 15,000 women who protested long work hours, low pay and the lack of voting rights. Today, it is dedicated to celebrating the achievements of women in the social, economic, cultural and political spheres, as well as shining a light on gender parity and women\u2019s rights.<\/p>\n

This year\u2019s theme is #EachforEqual draws on the idea of \u2018collective individualism\u2019 \u2013 that every individual is part of a whole, and that an individual\u2019s actions, behaviours and mindsets can all impact on wider society.<\/p>\n

Nat Mady founded Hackney Herbal<\/a> in 2015 after working as an engineer for two years at a engineering, design and consultancy company. A longstanding Hackney resident, she joined a community garden in 2011 where she found her interest in the urban food growing movement. \u201cCommunity gardens offer something to everyone,\u201d she said. \u201cThey bring people together from different walks of life and I met people that I wouldn\u2019t have met just living with my mates in Hackney. I saw how valuable those spaces were for people and for nature and for getting some respite in the city.\u201d<\/p>\n

From there, Nat became interested specifically in growing herbs and through some informal workshops found that focusing on herbs and their properties captured the imagination of local people. \u201cThere would be people who would say: \u2018Oh, back home we have this thing and it\u2019s called this, but I don\u2019t know what its English name is, and we use it for this,\u2019 \u2013 and people got really excited celebrating the heritage of their plants. We got lots of interest from people wanting to learn what they could do with herbs and what they could use them for things beyond just putting some sage and rosemary on your potatoes or making some mint tea.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hackney Herbal partnered with The Centre for Better Health<\/a>, a mental health charity which also has a social enterprise. Together, they piloted a six-week herbal craft course which focused on growing herbs and making simple remedies that attendees could repeat at home.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Ticketed workshops act as the perfect gift for those looking to get back to nature and invest in \u2018offline\u2019 experiences, and funds are put back into the community work Hackney Herbal does. The workshops start from \u00a312 for herbal walks at Hackney Marshes, up to \u00a335\/\u00a340 for more in-depth masterclasses on how to use herbs to make infused oils, lip balms, tea, and relaxation sprays.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople are willing to spend money on their health and wellbeing and value it, but we\u2019ve always been really conscious that it shouldn\u2019t come at a massive price. You shouldn\u2019t have to spend a lot of money to access that. Our community focus is Hackney, where we try and make as much of what we do accessible to other people through our free courses, and through the year we have some one-off public events where we do free workshops and we have monthly get togethers for anyone who\u2019s come to our community courses.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nat reflected on how attitudes with working with herbs has changed, particularly for women. \u201cI\u2019m doing a talk on herbs in the city in a few weeks and we were having the same kind of discussion around women as herbalists. It\u2019s interesting because from an on-the-ground point of view, women who were herbalists in the past were demonised and called witches, at a more community level I\u2019m sure there are way more women involved – whether its running community gardens or the herb work that I do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nat said that making the jump from the private sector into community business was the right move for her, as it allowed her more creative freedom over her work and the impact it makes. \u201cYou have much more control over what you\u2019re doing and your work and maybe from that point of \u2018power\u2019 that you end up in, you\u2019re able to challenge some of those things that don\u2019t exist in a more corporate workplace. I think you can challenge the idea that a job is simply something we all have to do to make money. And that running a business means you have to be ruthless to be successful.”<\/p>\n

\"\"

\u201cCommunity businesses show that there is an alternative,\u201d Nat said. \u201cWe can be nice to each other, collaborating instead of competing and we can work in a different way and not feel like a less successful business because we\u2019re growing slowly \u2013 maybe we won\u2019t grow at all – but that doesn\u2019t really matter. We don\u2019t put ourselves up to the same metric of success that a big corporate would have.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nat\u2019s previous career as an engineer was really born of a love of the environment. Nat admits being a bit of a \u201cgreen warrior\u201d as a teenager, but she soon realised that she wanted her impact to be greater than just what she was doing individually. \u201cI didn\u2019t really want to be someone who made other people feel bad. Through the gardening and a lot of the creative stuff we do, my initial idea was that if we can do creative things with plants and nature and give people an opportunity to develop their own values for them, then hopefully they\u2019ll have more of their own emphasis or eagerness to want to protect the environment, instead of just telling people what to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWithin our little team, I think everyone who is involved shares this idea around caring for the environment and allowing people to benefit from it. I think everyone has their own story of how nature and being outside and plants has helped them, and I think what we\u2019re trying to do is allow more people to experience that. And hopefully when they do, they can create their own belief system around it.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Power to Change\u2019s 2018 grantee survey<\/a>, 55% of community business leaders identify as female. Discussing why there seems to be more women leading community business, Nat said: \u201cI don\u2019t know if it\u2019s something that goes back to women traditionally being the caregivers in the family or whether it\u2019s something more around just trying to break away from conventional businesses where it still does seem so much harder for women to get into a high power roles. Things have obviously gotten a lot better, but if you\u2019ve got a family and you\u2019re prioritising different things and you\u2019re trying to elbow your way to the top and there is still a lot of stigma – gender equality isn\u2019t there yet. Maybe more women are getting frustrated with that and just want to get on with stuff and be able to work in a more flexible way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Coincidentally, Hackney Herbal\u2019s registered office is a light and airy studio space in Celia Fiennes House \u2013 named after the traveler and diarist who explored England in the late 1600s and early 1700s on horseback in a time when travelling was difficult \u2013 particularly for a woman. It seems that pioneering women have a particular history in Hackney.<\/p>\n

To find out more about Hackney Herbal\u2019s courses visit www.hackneyherbal.com<\/a><\/em>[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To mark International Women\u2019s Day (IWD) 2020, we spoke to the founder of Hackney Herbal CIC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":13307,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"The history of International Women\u2019s Day<\/a> dates back 108 years with the first in 1909, when the Socialist Party of America celebrated 15,000 women who protested long work hours, low pay and the lack of voting rights. Today, it is dedicated to celebrating the achievements of women in the social, economic, cultural and political spheres, as well as shining a light on gender parity and women\u2019s rights.\r\n\r\nThis year\u2019s theme is #EachforEqual draws on the idea of \u2018collective individualism\u2019 \u2013 that every individual is part of a whole, and that an individual\u2019s actions, behaviours and mindsets can all impact on wider society.\r\n\r\nNat Mady founded Hackney Herbal<\/a> in 2015 after working as an engineer for two years at a engineering, design and consultancy company. A longstanding Hackney resident, she joined a community garden in 2011 where she found her interest in the urban food growing movement. \u201cCommunity gardens offer something to everyone,\u201d she said. \u201cThey bring people together from different walks of life and I met people that I wouldn\u2019t have met just living with my mates in Hackney. I saw how valuable those spaces were for people and for nature and for getting some respite in the city.\u201d\r\n\r\nFrom there, Nat became interested specifically in growing herbs and through some informal workshops found that focusing on herbs and their properties captured the imagination of local people. \u201cThere would be people who would say: \u2018Oh, back home we have this thing and it\u2019s called this, but I don\u2019t know what its English name is, and we use it for this,\u2019 \u2013 and people got really excited celebrating the heritage of their plants. We got lots of interest from people wanting to learn what they could do with herbs and what they could use them for things beyond just putting some sage and rosemary on your potatoes or making some mint tea.\u201d\r\n\r\nHackney Herbal partnered with The Centre for Better Health<\/a>, a mental health charity which also has a social enterprise. Together, they piloted a six-week herbal craft course which focused on growing herbs and making simple remedies that attendees could repeat at home.\r\n\r\n\"\"\r\n\r\nTicketed workshops act as the perfect gift for those looking to get back to nature and invest in \u2018offline\u2019 experiences, and funds are put back into the community work Hackney Herbal does. The workshops start from \u00a312 for herbal walks at Hackney Marshes, up to \u00a335\/\u00a340 for more in-depth masterclasses on how to use herbs to make infused oils, lip balms, tea, and relaxation sprays.\r\n\r\n\u201cPeople are willing to spend money on their health and wellbeing and value it, but we\u2019ve always been really conscious that it shouldn\u2019t come at a massive price. You shouldn\u2019t have to spend a lot of money to access that. Our community focus is Hackney, where we try and make as much of what we do accessible to other people through our free courses, and through the year we have some one-off public events where we do free workshops and we have monthly get togethers for anyone who\u2019s come to our community courses.\u201d\r\n\r\nNat reflected on how attitudes with working with herbs has changed, particularly for women. \u201cI\u2019m doing a talk on herbs in the city in a few weeks and we were having the same kind of discussion around women as herbalists. It\u2019s interesting because from an on-the-ground point of view, women who were herbalists in the past were demonised and called witches, at a more community level I\u2019m sure there are way more women involved - whether its running community gardens or the herb work that I do.\u201d\r\n\r\nNat said that making the jump from the private sector into community business was the right move for her, as it allowed her more creative freedom over her work and the impact it makes. \u201cYou have much more control over what you\u2019re doing and your work and maybe from that point of \u2018power\u2019 that you end up in, you\u2019re able to challenge some of those things that don\u2019t exist in a more corporate workplace. I think you can challenge the idea that a job is simply something we all have to do to make money. And that running a business means you have to be ruthless to be successful.\"\r\n\r\n\"\"\r\n\r\n\u201cCommunity businesses show that there is an alternative,\u201d Nat said. \u201cWe can be nice to each other, collaborating instead of competing and we can work in a different way and not feel like a less successful business because we\u2019re growing slowly \u2013 maybe we won\u2019t grow at all - but that doesn\u2019t really matter. We don\u2019t put ourselves up to the same metric of success that a big corporate would have.\u201d\r\n\r\nNat\u2019s previous career as an engineer was really born of a love of the environment. Nat admits being a bit of a \u201cgreen warrior\u201d as a teenager, but she soon realised that she wanted her impact to be greater than just what she was doing individually. \u201cI didn\u2019t really want to be someone who made other people feel bad. Through the gardening and a lot of the creative stuff we do, my initial idea was that if we can do creative things with plants and nature and give people an opportunity to develop their own values for them, then hopefully they\u2019ll have more of their own emphasis or eagerness to want to protect the environment, instead of just telling people what to do.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWithin our little team, I think everyone who is involved shares this idea around caring for the environment and allowing people to benefit from it. I think everyone has their own story of how nature and being outside and plants has helped them, and I think what we\u2019re trying to do is allow more people to experience that. And hopefully when they do, they can create their own belief system around it.\u201d\r\n\r\nAccording to Power to Change\u2019s 2018 grantee survey<\/a>, 55% of community business leaders identify as female. Discussing why there seems to be more women leading community business, Nat said: \u201cI don\u2019t know if it\u2019s something that goes back to women traditionally being the caregivers in the family or whether it\u2019s something more around just trying to break away from conventional businesses where it still does seem so much harder for women to get into a high power roles. Things have obviously gotten a lot better, but if you\u2019ve got a family and you\u2019re prioritising different things and you\u2019re trying to elbow your way to the top and there is still a lot of stigma - gender equality isn\u2019t there yet. Maybe more women are getting frustrated with that and just want to get on with stuff and be able to work in a more flexible way.\u201d\r\n\r\nCoincidentally, Hackney Herbal\u2019s registered office is a light and airy studio space in Celia Fiennes House \u2013 named after the traveler and diarist who explored England in the late 1600s and early 1700s on horseback in a time when travelling was difficult \u2013 particularly for a woman. It seems that pioneering women have a particular history in Hackney.\r\n\r\nTo find out more about Hackney Herbal\u2019s courses visit www.hackneyherbal.com<\/a><\/em>","_et_gb_content_width":"","inline_featured_image":false,"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[340],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.powertochange.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13306"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.powertochange.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.powertochange.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.powertochange.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.powertochange.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13306"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.powertochange.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13306\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.powertochange.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13307"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.powertochange.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.powertochange.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.powertochange.org.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}