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Rosie has been working with schools around Newcastle over the past year, helping them to run their own projects focused on environmental and social action. Rachel and Rosie took 5 minutes to talk about some of the wider impacts that this work had on the children involved.

 

"We Share Freely". The change we want to see in the world is bigger than we are. So, we're sharing our knowledge, resources and ideas to help more people and organisations take steps forward towards our vision of a green and thriving planet, where everyone can enjoy happy and healthy lives within the Earth's limits.

 

As part of this, we've launched our "5 Minute GAP" series, a collection of five minute conversations that will share how we work and what we're working on. We'll talk about what we're trying to achieve and why, how we function as an organisation, and the thinking behind our plans and strategy.

 

We'll be regularly sharing these conversations, which will feature different members of our team and trustee board, as well as external experts.

 

We hope you enjoy listening in to our chats, getting to know our team and finding out what makes us who we are. 

 

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Audio only version:

 

If you prefer to read rather than watch, the transcription is here: 

 

Rachel: So they had they had a real practice of caring for nature and kind of like nurturing wildlife and reaching out to communities with compassionate causes and changing changing things for their environments, these young people. So they're taking action in so many ways, aren't they? Under your...yeah under your supervision and I think I'm sure they're going to miss you, but I bet you've sewed the idea of how... of change with them and their power and their voice and I think that that is something that they'll take with them.

Rosie: I hope so. Yeah, I hope so. And some have definitely come up to me at the end of projects and been like, this is what I want to do. And this is whether that's a social project or an environmental project. And some of them just thought we should have these kinds of lessons every single day because climate change is just so... they can't fathom why we're doing anything else with this huge looming threat of climate change. And others just have a bit more perspective. Like, instead of asking their parents for like the biggest, most expensive birthday present ever, they've just got a bit more. Yeah. That realization that money doesn't just grow on trees because they've all had this experience of budget now and it doesn't go as far as they think or thought it did. And so that that sort of added knock on effect as well, just being a bit more savvy with money and just wanting stuff.

And especially when we've explored a lot of people in their communities that don't have anything, let alone the latest, you know, Gameboy or whatever. Yeah. So that's interesting.

Rachel: So really help them to have experience of living those values that I guess you looked at right at the beginning of the work with them is like really looking at what they hold to be important and what's valuable and stuff. I think that sounds really like probably quite life changing in a way. And I definitely know that from my daughter and she's really young, but there's no end of the things that she wants in terms of material things.

But we've more recently with the kind of like 30 days wild and June, I kind of got myself sorted out in June and we planted a rainbow trough of flowers outside the front, the front of my house. And it had to be rainbow, you know, if it's not unicorns it has to be rainbow, but I'm down with that. And she absolutely loves like tending the garden with me every day.

And and she's got a spade and she's like, "Mommy, I need to get my spade out and plant things" and loves getting her hands in the soil and is absolutely thrilled to see like the sunflowers growing. And, as am I, and it's bringing us a lot of joy and our neighbours pass us by and say "this house is the sunniest house on the street" kind of thing.

And that that lifts us up so much to be like a bit of a spot in our community and the children who walk down our road, go to school and a couple of them have stopped, you know, and I've seen they've stopped and I've seen them sniffing the flowers and taking a moment. And I think like that's really powerful to see that like as well as the kind of wildlife stuff of the bees and talking about how important bees are that our community love the colour and that she's really enjoying that I'm kind of like. And I'm kind of just distracting her away from all the, the kind of the wanting of the consumerist stuff, hopefully, with this idea of like, she absolutely loves doing this. So it's about putting those different options in front of them I think, isn't it. And saying like, well, you can do this and that's your pot and that's your spade. What you going to do?

Rosie: Yeah. And then you're so shocked sometimes when they're like, is this mine? You know, like, or am I really allowed to write to Boris Johnson? I'm like, Yes,  yeah, course you are! Like, what age were you going to wait for? You know, like, crack on. Do it. Do it now. Yeah, yeah.

Rachel: It's important. It's like.... and so interesting that you say that they can't fathom why we're not acting more on climate change. And I think that, you know, a lot of people share that view of theirs. They are they are so right. And they are citizens and their voice matters.