My initiative is designed for and delivered in London
Yes
I am 18 years of age or above, by the application deadline.
Yes
My organisation is a registered UK entity and has a London-based address.
Yes
My organisation is a non-profit (e.g. school, university, or local authority) — not a for-profit, which can only join as a partner.
Yes
If there is a for-profit organisation as a partner in my initiative, they work on a cost-recovery basis only.
Yes
My solution is implemented at scale, or if not, I have a clear business plan, a minimum viable solution (prototype, pilot, or proof of concept), evidence of access to a lease for the space you are leveraging, and evidence of work or impact in London within your coalition.
Yes
I am aware that, if I am submitting more than one application to a Challenge run by Ashoka and Go! London, only one of them is able to progress through the stages.
Yes
Are you an employee (and their children and grandchildren) of Ashoka or any of its respective affiliates and participating advertising and promotion agencies?
No
I have read and accepted the Challenge Terms & Conditions.
Yes
First Name
Tayshan
Last Name
Hayden-Smith
Pronouns
He/Him
Email address
I would like to receive notifications and updates about Go London!, Ashoka, Ashoka Changemakers, and other Ashoka opportunities.
1
Are you an Ashoka Fellow?
No
Are you applying from an organization founded by an Ashoka Fellow?
No
If you are applying from an organization founded by an Ashoka Fellow, please specify the name and organisation of the fellow below.
Lead Organisation Name
Grow to Know CiC
Year that you started/ registered your organisation
2019
Initiative Title
Closing the Green Gap
My initiative is designed for and delivered in London
1
Website URL(s) or Social Media Handles
www.growtoknow.world
Initiative Stage
Pilot-Stage (The first activities have happened, and you have proof of concept)
Sectors/Themes: What topic does your project most directly relate to?
Environment & Sustainability
Initiative Summary: Describe your initiative in one sentence
Grow to Know is transforming a disused car park at Lancaster Youth Hub, North Kensington, into a youth co-designed garden — creating a nature-centred programme that reaches 300 young people through the reimagined space, engages a cohort of 30-50 in regular gardening sessions, and takes a core group of 10-15 on a residential to Brownsea Island with the National Trust. North Kensington has some of the lowest access to green space in London. The community was devastated by the Grenfell Tower fire and continues to navigate its consequences. Young people face intersecting barriers — poverty, disrupted education, care experience, proximity to the criminal justice system — while the green sector remains 98% white and middle-class. Grow to Know was born from guerrilla gardening after Grenfell and continues to be shaped by lived experience. This programme addresses systemic barriers at every level: transforming concrete into a productive garden, building sustained relationships with young people through a cohort model, creating pathways into the green economy, challenging who accesses natural landscapes through a residential partnership with the National Trust. It sits within our Closing the Green Gap campaign and wider strategy pursuing community asset transfers — so spaces communities transform are permanently protected.
The Problem: What problem are you helping to solve and who will benefit the most from your solution? How close are you to the problem and/or community impacted?
North Kensington sits within the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea — the most affluent local authority in the UK — yet Notting Dale ward, home to Lancaster Youth Hub, is the second most deprived in the borough where 76% of households experience deprivation across income, education, health or housing. London Climate Risk Maps show 100% of the area lacks access to public open space. The Westway carries 96,000 cars daily above the neighbourhood with mean NO2 of 41µg/m3. Every 360m from green space links with 5% higher anxiety and depression risk — environmental deprivation deepens a health crisis driven by poverty. This is the product of intersecting injustices. Decisions about land use, investment and infrastructure have systematically disadvantaged this community along lines of race, class and geography. The Grenfell Tower fire which killed 72 of our neighbours exposed those consequences. Many residents continue to navigate grief, displacement and mistrust. Young people at Lancaster Youth Hub carry these realities — long-term unemployment, alternative education, care experience, proximity to the criminal justice system. The green sector remains 98% white and middle-class. These young people are locked out — not for lack of ability, but because pathways, networks and representation don't exist for them. Grow to Know was born from this lived experience and continues to be shaped by it. I grew up in council housing in North Kensington, one of four children raised by a single mother. After Grenfell, I began guerrilla gardening on neglected council land — not as a hobby, but as collective healing. That became Grow to Know, a community interest company led by and rooted in the community it serves. This programme changes the story for the next generation.
Your approach: How are you/ will you addressing the problem outlined above? How does your solution unlock or reimagine access to spaces for sport and physical activity? What role do landowners, local authorities, or other decision-making stakeholders play in your approach? We'd love to know about the origin of your idea, and what was your "aha" moment" that led you to take action?
We are transforming a disused car park at Lancaster Youth Hub into a youth co-designed garden as the base for a gardening programme and pilot residential to Brownsea Island with the National Trust. Young people are key decision makers throughout — determining what gets planted, how the space is used and what the programme looks like. Not consulted after the fact, but shaping direction from the start. Weekly sessions — food growing, construction, maintenance, planting, composting and seasonal workshops. Physically active outdoor sessions offering an accessible alternative to traditional sport. A progression model built around depth. 300 young people using the hub interact with the garden. A cohort of 30-50 engage regularly. A core group of 10-15 go deeper — leadership roles, co-designing workshops, documenting their journeys. A pilot residential to Brownsea Island for 10-15 young people — woodland, shoreline and wildlife habitats they've never accessed. The National Trust is a strategic partner to Closing the Green Gap and I serve as an NT ambassador. Pathways into gardening and the green economy in a sector that is 98% white and middle-class. A land justice intervention — taking space designed for cars and putting it in the hands of young people systematically denied green space. RBKC owns the site. Embedding a youth-led programme in council-owned space models community organisations holding vision while local authorities provide the asset. Born from guerrilla gardening after Grenfell, Grow to Know is a direct response to systemic barriers denying this community green space. This sits within a wider strategy from spatial intervention to community ownership — pursuing asset transfers so spaces communities transform are permanently protected.
Collaboration with young people and the community: In what ways does your initiative engage young people and community members closest to the problem? What role do they play in building the solution you deliver?
Young people are not beneficiaries of this programme — they are its architects. Their lived experiences are not case studies but essential leadership, insight and knowledge shaping how the programme is designed and delivered. Initial conversations with young people at Lancaster Youth Hub have identified clear need. RBKC's own Youth Review found 75% of young people say sports and leisure is their top priority, yet 37% don't access facilities — citing cost and distance as barriers. Young people told the Council they want "more say on what the youth club looks like" and "an active role in responding to environmental issues." The VCS identified "lots of underused spaces in the borough we should be utilising." This programme responds directly to that evidence. The garden has been co-designed with young people who use the hub — what gets planted, how the space is laid out, what the programme looks like. The 30-50 cohort participate in weekly growing sessions and seasonal workshops. The core group of 10-15 lead sessions, maintain the space, co-design events and plan the Brownsea Island residential — setting goals and documenting the journey. Young people record their own journeys through photos, journals, audio and film — active participants in telling the story of change, not subjects of someone else's evaluation. The guerrilla gardens that followed Grenfell were not projects. They were a community response to disaster. Grow to Know grew from that response, formalising the approach into a CIC rooted in co-production and shaped by lived experience. At Lancaster Youth Hub, we build on what those gardens taught us — a structured programme from first contact with food growing, through seasonal planning, to the residential and routes into land-based careers.
Potential for/Evidence of Impact: How do you imagine your initiative will make a difference in unlocking spaces for and access to physical activity and sport so far? If you have already implemented it, what difference have you made so far? What is the impact your initiative has had , and or what impact do you envision having in the future?
Since 2019, Grow to Know has created four guerrilla gardens across North Kensington on previously unused land, now serving hundreds of residents for growing, connection and wellbeing. This programme prioritises depth over scale. Impact is tracked at three levels: Space level (300 young people): Every young person using Lancaster Youth Hub interacts with a garden where a car park used to be. We track footfall, informal use and how the transformed space changes behaviour and perception. Cohort level (30-50 young people): Regular participants in weekly gardening sessions. We track attendance, retention, emerging connection to nature and outdoor physical activity through check-ins and session observations. Core group level (10-15 young people): Supported through a distance-travelled approach — baseline conversations at start, participatory documentation by young people themselves, and structured reflections at mid and end-point. We use most significant change methodology: participants and staff identify the most significant change at key moments, building a qualitative evidence base. Residential (10-15 young people): Brownsea Island as a structured evaluation moment — before and after reflections capturing shifts in confidence, connection to nature and sense of possibility. We are building an impact framework, not claiming a finished one. Developing participatory evaluation is part of our growth — exactly the capacity Go! London can strengthen. The longer-term impact is structural. The green sector is 98% white and middle-class. This programme creates conditions for change through sustained relationships helping young people see themselves in the green economy.
Innovation: What is different about your initiative compared to other solutions that are already out there? How is your approach original and innovative?
Most youth physical activity programmes operate within existing infrastructure and measure success by headcount. Our approach is different on both counts. We start with the space itself: transforming it, making that transformation the programme. The reimagining of the space is the physical activity. Gardening is physical activity. Digging, building raised beds, carrying compost, planting and harvesting are physically demanding outdoor work — without the exclusionary associations formal sport carries for young people pushed out of traditional settings. Crucially, it is tactile and tangible. Young people who struggle with traditional engagement — classroom learning, structured sport, institutional settings — respond to working with their hands, seeing immediate results and building something real. The physicality of gardening meets them where they are. We work with land nobody else wants. A car park. Neglected council land. Our guerrilla gardening origins mean we see potential in spaces institutions overlook — a direct challenge to land use decisions that left North Kensington without green space. The residential reimagines access at a different scale — connecting urban young people to landscapes structural inequality has placed out of reach. Enabled by an existing National Trust partnership. We prioritise depth over numbers. The green sector's 98% white, middle-class workforce won't shift through one-off workshops. It shifts when young people are supported deeply enough to see themselves in it. Rooted in post-disaster community organising, Grow to Know emerged from Grenfell — a community that reimagined its own spaces because institutions had failed. That origin sits at the intersection of land, social, racial and environmental justice.
Viability and Scalability: How are you setting your initiative up for success, and what is your plan to ensure operational sustainability of your solution and its impact? What are your ideas for scaling your initiative to the next level?
Grow to Know is a registered community interest company and established GLA delivery partner. The programme sits within our Closing the Green Gap campaign. The Deputy Mayor of London for Environment and Energy has endorsed the campaign's potential for increased and wider application across London. The National Trust partnership is central. As strategic partners to Closing the Green Gap — with Tayshan serving as a National Trust ambassador — we have an established relationship supporting the residential and longer-term development. These two partnerships — with the GLA and National Trust — are what make scalability credible. The GLA provides the strategic framework and policy alignment across 33 boroughs. The National Trust provides access to a national network of landscapes and residential sites. Together they create a route to replication that doesn't depend on Grow to Know delivering everywhere, but on the model being adopted by others within existing infrastructure. Community ownership is the long-term goal. We are pursuing community asset transfer for existing garden sites — ensuring community-led green spaces are permanently protected, not dependent on landowners or funding cycles. Lancaster Youth Hub demonstrates the first stage: a community organisation holding vision and programme within a council-owned asset, building the case for formal transfer. Go! London funding would be catalytic — enabling the Lancaster Youth Hub programme, residential pilot, impact framework and replication toolkit for other London communities.
Roles and Responsibilities: Describe how responsibilities are shared among your team or partners.
Grow to Know CIC (lead applicant): Tayshan Hayden-Smith, CEO & Creative Director — programme vision, strategic leadership, stakeholder relationships with RBKC and National Trust, residential planning, delivery oversight and evaluation Will Carr, Head of Communications — documentation, storytelling, community outreach, impact communications Amber Edirisinghe, Head of Education — programme design, session planning, youth engagement, safeguarding, weekly gardening session delivery, residential programme coordination Young people at Lancaster Youth Hub — co-designers and co-deliverers. The core group of 10-15 lead growing sessions, maintenance rotations, residential planning, community events and participatory documentation of their own journeys. Young K+C (supporting organisation) — youth engagement and community connection across Kensington and Chelsea, supporting outreach and recruitment into the programme. Fit For Life Youth (supporting organisation) — supporting physical activity dimensions, connecting gardening and the residential to health, movement and wellbeing outcomes. National Trust (strategic partner) — strategic partners to Closing the Green Gap. Tayshan serves as a National Trust ambassador. The NT supports the Brownsea Island residential and wider programme development. RBKC — landowner of the Lancaster Youth Hub site, providing access for the garden and programme delivery.
Upcoming Milestones: Please provide an overview of the milestones that are required for your initiative to come to fruition/to grow.
Garden transformation at Lancaster Youth Hub complete — Summer 2026 Programme co-design workshops with young people — Aug/Sep 2026 Programme launch: weekly gardening sessions begin — September 2026 Baseline conversations with core group participants — September 2026 First seasonal workshop — Autumn 2026 Mid-point reflections and most significant change collection — January 2027 Brownsea Island residential pilot (10-15 young people) — Spring/Summer 2027 Community showcase: young people present the space and programme — Spring 2027 End-point evaluation: distance travelled, participatory documentation compiled — Summer 2027 Impact report and replication toolkit development — Summer 2027
Capacity-Building Participation and Support Funding: If you were to make it as a finalist, you will be required to participate in an 8-week capacity building programme. If funding/ cost is a barrier to your participation, we may be able to offer up to 10,000 GBP of grant money available to support you. Please break down below, if it is the case, what costs you would incur and you would need covered. (Please note that there are restrictions on how the grant money may be used; please refer to the T&Cs for further details.
As a small, founder-led CIC with a core team of three, participation in the capacity-building programme requires additional operational support to ensure the organisation can focus on delivery. Part-time operational coordinator and administrative support to manage wider Grow to Know activity and programme delivery — £9,000 Travel and subsistence for programme attendance — £1,000
