Wonders of Worms

Wonders of Worms with the Irish Hospice Fund and Sligo Childrens Community Garden

This project used plants, compost, and storytelling to explore themes of life and death with children and their parents. Developed with a Seed Grant and rooted in the Sligo Children’s Community Garden, it invited young participants to engage with the natural cycles of decay and growth as a way to talk about grief, change, and regeneration.

Through tending compost and planting pea seeds, children witnessed how waste transforms into fertile ground — a quiet metaphor for emotional renewal. Each step, from composting food scraps to harvesting sweet pods, mirrored the human experience: loss, care, patience, and the return of hope.

The garden became a living story — where life and death coexisted, and where the smallest acts of tending offered space for healing. In compost, we found more than soil; we found a way to nurture resilience and new beginnings.

“I do not allow myself to be overcome by hopelessness, no matter how tough the situation. I believe that if you just do your little bit without thinking of the bigness of what you stand against,
if you turn to the enlargement of your own capacities, just that itself creates new potential.”
Vandana Shiva