The Big Green Picture
Seeing the big green picture - through young people's eyes
GLOBAL GENERATION has just celebrated the launch of its twelve month programme as a finalist in this year’s Big Green Challenge.
Organised by NESTA (The National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts), the Big Green Challenge attracted over 350 applicant groups from across the UK to demonstrate how they could achieve significant energy and carbon emission reductions through collaborative local enterprise.
Global Generation’s programme built upon the interests and resources of their young participants – known as Global Generators – to change the physical and behavioural landscape of the Kings Cross area of North London.
Acting as Climate Change Champions, the Global Generators are drawing upon the expertise of a range of professionals in the field of environmental sustainability, both to encourage local attitudinal change, and also to rework the ecology around, within and indeed on top of four business buildings and four public centres in this fast developing “concrete jungle” surrounding the Kings Cross, St Pancras and Euston stations.
This diverse programme involves a range of specific projects. For example, one is working with local schools to develop vegetable gardens in the grounds and up on the roofs of their facilities (with the food produce being served in the meals of the school canteen). Another is collaborating with the employees of a major marketing company in creating herbal planters as a part of the design for their new building roofspace; A third is developing the open spaces between blocks of social housing to become viable allotment projects to bring together the often isolated occupants of these 1960s redbrick towers.
The development of each of these “living building” projects is underpinned by the professional delivery of a structured three-tier programme of personal learning, involving each of the young participants, guided by specialists in youth development and environmental skills and technologies.
Conducted initially at an ecologically-friendly farm camp at Pertwood in Wiltshire, the young urban-dwellers gain what is often their first taste of a rural and outdoor life: living under canvas, enjoying fresh local organic foods and working practically on the land. They also reflect upon this new experience through discussion, creative writing, drama, art and photography.
Upon returning to London, the young people are involved in a Local Food and Health Matters module, encouraging them to grow vegetable and herb produce, and then preparing and cooking healthy meals for themselves and their friends, with a parallel climate change focus on food transportation miles, packaging and energy waste, and the value of composting for further food generation.
In the final part of the Programme, participants join with local business employees, community social groups and school classes to engage in the design, development and installation of “Green Facilities” on local buildings and open spaces. Ranging from green roofs and walls, to water conservation and recycling, these projects introduce the young people to their local worlds of work, and provide core practical skills currently much in demand across London and the UK.
A major element of the Big Green Challenge is to evaluate and demonstrate both physical improvement (eg in water conservation, carbon emission reduction, lowering of energy consumption etc) and “green” behavioural improvement (not only in the participants themselves, but amongst their friends, families and local businesses with whom they collaborate).
And finally, through successfully developing and demonstrating this individual-community-business partnership model, a core set of principles is being created for replication in other boroughs and regions not only across Great Britain, but also transferable to support the social cohesion building of a number of developing worldwide communities.
Led by a group of experienced Trustees, including RSA Fellow Bill Donnelly and RSA Fellow applicant Jane Riddiford, the Global Generation response to the Big Green Challenge is already attracting the attention of a wide range of policy makers, businesses, communities and the academic world.
But the real proof is in the statements of the participants themselves:
After we were introduced and we sorted out our tents and things at the campsite, we went for a walk through the fields – it was so amazing! I actually couldn’t find words to describe it – I have never felt that amount of appreciation for anything. Najmo
At the end of the day, I was reflecting over my feelings, and I realised that we waste so much – even though it may be only a little for each of us, it accumulates – so I definitely am going to make sure that I change this, when I get back to my family. Nura
Collecting the wood from Hampstead Heath, and then turning it into planters and growing things up on our school roof was all so new to me – I didn’t know you could do things like that around here, and I want to learn lots more about it, even as a career. Benji
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