Sydney’s Inside Out Organic Soup Kitchen has partnered with Austrlaian contruction company Built, to privide innovative opportunity by rooftop to engage asylum seekers and support the local Kings Cross homeless community.
For the past three years, Rob Caslick has run the Inside Out Organic Soup Kitchen in Kings Cross with a mission to serve wholesome organic food to the homeless in this area. Situated above the kitchen is a refugee support service and it was a conversation between the two businesses that inspired the development of the roof top garden above them.
The primary role of the garden is to give people on bridging visas the opportunity to participate in something meaningful.
“We discussed the idea of activating this roof top to engage with those seeking asylum who are living in our local community and to give them a sense of purpose during the time they submit their application for a humanitarian visa and when they are accepted for residency. This can often take up to five years! Five long years of waiting and not being allowed to work,” said Caslick.
The resulting harvested produce will be utilised in the Soup Kitchen to further give back to the community. Caslick is also in talks with Kylie Kwong to grow herbs for her new restaurant in Potts Point and other local restaurateurs who are interested in being able to purchase locally grown produce – thereby providing funds for garden maintenance and upkeep.
Delivering a rooftop garden on top of an historical building is expensive due to its structurally complicated nature. Caslick and his team undertook a crowd-funding initiative raising over $20k in just 10 days – with the help of high-profile supporters including chef and author Christine Manfield and celebrity gardener Costa Georgiadis. Thanks to the support of the City of Sydney a total of nearly $50k has since been raised – more than triple their goal.
??????Since the project has begun, Caslick has been inundated with emails from people to help build the garden. “I’ve been immensely blessed by the amount of people who are willing to donate their time and experience to see this project come to life. I’m so thankful to have Built onboard providing their expertise when it comes to the major building works. The site is tricky and it needs an extraordinary level of care, skill and know-how to ensure it’s done to the highest standard,” said Caslick.
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Image credit: St Canice’s Kitchen
