Social, Community, Therapeutic Horticultural & Environmental Education
Dee Sewell is a community based entrepreneur based on the Carlow/Kilkenny border in South East Ireland. Dee created Greenside Up in 2009 to help promote the grow your own ethos and raise environmental awareness. With over 14 years of experience behind her, Dee has worked with a wide range of social, community and therapeutic projects in Ireland.
Trading as Greenside Up, Dee helps people to garden using organic principles, to consider biodiversity and food waste, and to live more co-sufficient lifestyles with an emphasis on social, community and therapeutic gardening. She has a wide reaching network that can link people together.
“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world” ~ Nelson Mandela
As a Member of the Chartered Institute of Horticulture and a qualified horticulturalist, Dee was one of the voluntary founding members of Community Gardens Ireland, the County Carlow Environmental Network and County Carlow Community Garden Network. She is a VOICE Ireland Recycling Ambassador, a GROW Observatory Community Champion in Ireland and a Stop Food Waste Master Composter.
Dee studied Market Gardening in Kildalton Agricultural and Horticultural College, as well as Entrepreneurship, Ecology and the Environment. In 2019 she returned to adult education to study for a Certificate in Landscape Design with the South East Technological University (previously Waterford IT). She is Garda vetted and a qualified Transformative Community Educator with Kilkenny Carlow Education Training Board.
Dee travels to communities, therapeutic settings and gardens, advising, speaking, working with and educating young people and old, about how to grow herbs, fruit, flowers and vegetables in recycled containers, directly into the soil or in professionally built raised beds.
Dee has worked with a diverse range of people, from those seeking addiction counselling, people in nursing homes and others with psychological, intellectual and physical difficulties. She has worked with primary schools and transition year students, members of the travelling community and asylum seekers, as well as talked at garden clubs and festivals across Ireland. Dee has presented to staff within the Environmental Protection Agency, the Irish Stock Exchange and is on the speaker panel for VHI about the environment and horticulture.
Greenside Up is a Registered Company No. 388060
