A project that teaches people to view plants as medicine has won an award for a food and herb course at the University of East London.

Living Medicine has won an Award of Merit from Gardening Against The Odds for its Introduction to Self Care with Foods & Herbs course at UEL’s East medicinal garden.

The course was developed in 2012 and covered the basics of body functiions, the therapeutic actions of plants, food and remedy making as well as identification of herbs.

The course, which was delivered by Gil Farrow, was oversubscribed and received positive feedback from those who attended. It is being run again at UEL.

Organisers are also hoping to offer it to community gardens and other venues. It is funded by Well London and will be free to local people.

Alex Laird, project director, said the presentation of the award and the recognition that comes with it had given the project a great boost.

She said: “We will also package the course for teaching around the country by other medical herbalists. Then, we’ll seek funding to write a mentoring course so that people themselves can become health mentors and Living Medicine mentors, to teach each other about food as medicine and family remedies. Once the course is accredited, we plan to offer it to GPs, the NHS and other health agencies as peer-to-peer health education. And thus revive our self care skills around the UK.”