Forest School for Kids

Fiach Walker grew up with a deep love of nature inspired by his parent’s passion, he spent many
long hours of his childhood out exploring the fields and wild places near his home. He began to
volunteering in social care at the age of fifteen and continued on to study this area in college,
enjoying to this day working closely with people. Fiach trained with the Irish Forest School
Association in 2021 and began working with Maura Brennan from the Acorn Project in Kilkenny in
the Spring of this year, helping to run in-school projects, after schools programmes, summer camps,
inter-generational skills sharing workshops and a rites of passage programme with teenagers. Fiach
is tending to his growing interest in ancestral skills and traditional crafts, herbalism and wellbeing
through and with nature.

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Maura Brennan is an Educator, Weaver, Rites of Passage Facilitator ,  Sacred Plant Medicine Practitioner and  Apprentice Herbalist.She

 is a Forest School Leader and Forest Therapy Guide . She  is passionate about sharing traditional skills and  using plants for food , medicine and crafts. Maura  learned to weave from a family of  traditional weavers and herbalists  in Peru in 2005/06  This

 experience reawakened her learning in traditional crafts and uses of  plants .She loves to work in collaboration with communities, organisations, schools ,  artists and individuals. After a visit to an ancient Oak woodland in Scotland in 2017 , Maura founded

 the Acorn Project and has been working  with communities and schools along the River Nore  towards a shared vision of forest restoration.

 The Acorn Project is a community seedsaving project that

 creates nature based programmes for learning and wellbeing that connect children and adults  to nature and inspire action in ecological restoration.  

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