Gurseva: Crane Valley Partnership Projects

Gurseva is a volunteer-led charity with the aims of promoting wellbeing and preventing poverty. The charity supports the homeless, local communities, and the environment through hands-on activities such as delivering food parcels, running soup kitchens, and engaging in environmental work like tree planting.

Gurseva applied to the Crane Valley Community Fund to fund a tree planting project, which aims to promote better health and wellbeing within local communities by improving air quality and providing opportunities to increase participation in nature-based activities. It also provides learning opportunities, not only through raising environmental awareness but also by teaching people new skills such as tree pruning and planting. The project encourages community members to get involved at every stage- from planting to ongoing maintenance- helping foster a sense of ownership and pride in their local environment. It’s also an opportunity to discover and explore local green spaces people may not have visited before.

So far, Gurseva have planted trees in several parks across Hounslow, such as Crane Park and Leitrim Park. These sessions have become increasingly popular, with volunteer numbers now expected to reach up to 60. To support their project further, Gurseva applied for another grant from the 2024/25 Crane Valley Community Fund to purchase additional tools and equipment for tree planting at Bedfont Lakes Southside, as well as to cover costs of promotional materials. This included pruning and watering equipment, gloves, pick axes, forks and spades, and 20 pear trees.

The locations of tree planting plots were chosen based on guidance from the local community and Hounslow Council, with help from the Lampton Countryside team. The 20 pear trees in Bedfont Lakes were planted next to an existing apple orchard at the site, in the hopes that Gurseva can host apple and pear picking and juicing events in future.

I had the pleasure of attending Gurseva’s tree planting session at Bedfont Lakes Southside, where 15 employees from Microsoft joined for a corporate volunteering day. Satinder, Gurseva’s Chair, stated that recently the charity is being approached by more corporate groups, including teams from Heathrow Airport, requesting volunteer days. In response to this growing demand, Gurseva has applied to further funding to focus its efforts towards engaging businesses in environmental activities, in addition to the general public. They also plan to connect this work to Let’s Go Outside And Learn’s (LGOAL) business engagement strategy. You can watch this lovely video for an insight into Gurseva’s tree planting sessions: How This Charity Are Removing CO2 From The Air. You can also contact the charity at info@gurseva.org.uk, or follow them on Facebook: Gurseva_Facebook

Gurseva found “the application process [to the Crane Valley Community Fund] was simple to use and navigate. We were able to send an application in a short timespan thanks to the online nature of the process. It also meant we could collaborate together with the inputs”.