CEQ Climate Emergency Action – work with young people this summer

Posted onAuthorCentral England Quakers

Small Footsteps – Update

Central England Quakers and Footsteps – Faiths for a Low Carbon Future have joined together to offer a summer programme of activities for young people aged 8 – 12 years, themed around the environment.

As we come out of lock-down the Small Footsteps programme will provide opportunities for young people to get together in their communities and open spaces to have fun together, experience the natural world, and take something home with them.

Through CEQ Climate Emergency Action, Quakers are the main source of financial support for Small Footsteps 2021.  This is now starting to bear fruit with Footsteps and the Birmingham and Black Country Wildlife Trust collaborating to run two Small Footsteps events at the Trust’s EcoPark in Small Heath.  Young people are being invited from Green Lane and al Hijra mosques and other local places of worship.      

B&BC Wildlife Trust is using the events as a pilot for larger Small Footsteps programmes in the future, possibly also at their Centre of the Earth headquarters in Winson Green. Other Small Footsteps this summer are in the pipe-line at Streetly Methodist Church, Clifton Road Mosque, St Francis Church Bournville and in conjunction with a climate café at Northfield Baptist Church. If your Quaker meeting is interested in being a host organisation in future, contact footstepsbcf@gmail.com

The programme builds on earlier successful Small Footsteps programmes (the photo above shows Small Footsteps in 2016).  Activities will be delivered by experienced facilitators around three themes:

  • Connecting with Nature,
  • Reducing our Footprint,
  • Earth-Friendly Skills. 

At the end of an activity, the young people will make a pledge and be given a ‘Small Footsteps Champion’ badge and certificate.

More information about the programme is on the Footsteps website.

Activities for Young Adults – Registration now open

For young adults aged 16 – 25, CEQ Climate Emergency Action and Footsteps are supporting The Loving Earth Textile and Poetry project. This is offering the young adults ways to create their own responses to the Climate Crisis and the environmental actions, to be highlighted through the upcoming COP 26 conference. Registration is now open for young people who would like to take part.