Our History

Recent History

2022: In 2022 we secured supported from the abrdn Charitable Foundation (ACF) and the Dr. Martens Foundation to roll out the Climate Action Toolkit to schools in London and around the UK.

2021: In July 2021 we were appointed as the Secretariat of the Youth Action against Climate Change All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG), a forum for elevating youth voices on climate change in Westminster.

2020-2023: We joined with partner organisations across Europe in an EU Erasmus+ funded project, International Climate Action Network (I-CAN), to give teachers the skills, confidence and framework to enable pupils to become effective critical thinking collaborators and active climate conscious citizens.

Climate Voices 2018-2021: We were supported by JRCT to develop the programme further with an additional 3 years of funding running from 2018-2021 for Climate Voices.

We had four aims to develop the programme during this period: 1) Run our events in more cities and towns, so that by 2021 we have increased from operating in 4 to 7 areas per year; 2) A focus on attracting more schools in disadvantaged areas; 3) Increased follow-up with students after they attend our event; 4) Improved medium and long-term impact assessment. You can explore the impact of Climate Voices here.

Climate Voices 2015-2018: Our core programme until the end of 2021, Climate Voices, started in 2015.

The first 3 years of the programme was made possible by core funding received from the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust (JRCT). We developed the Climate Conference events and follow-up activities in secondary school in Bristol, Cheltenham, Reading, and Solihull.

We also ran very successful ‘National Summit’ events in London, including in Parliament’s Portcullis House.

Origins

1978 Rev Derek Winter of St Paul’s College, Cheltenham established the Cheltenham Development Education Centre: a resource centre for teachers and others concerned with Third World Issues.

1980 Became the Gloucestershire Development Education Centre GLOSDEC with the appointment of a Development Education Officer and links were forged in India and Kenya. John Davidson OBE became Excecutive Chair.

1998-2000 A programme called Global Footsteps was launched linking schools internationally.

2000 Global Dimension Ltd was formed which quickly became a Charity.

2001-2004 Global ITE project (Initial Teachers Education) developing a perspective on local to global dimension.

2002-2003 Programme entitled Developing Images of India : working with ethnic minority groups in Gloucestershire to deliver sessions on their culture in schools.

2004-2007 Gardens for Life. Brought together GDT’s Indian partners with The Eden Project in Cornwall.

2007 Sharing Communities supported Gloucestershire based Bangladeshi and Indian role model tutors to run interactive workshops in primary schools helping the understanding of different cultures and the impact of climate change. Funded by European Commission Capacity Building.

2008 InterClimate Network Ltd was created to deliver  InterClimate Challenge where schools in UK, Kenya and India developed creative solutions to Climate Change and then shared these across different cultures. In UK ICN then helped young people implement their projects with a DFID Development Awareness Fund Mini Grant.

2010 GDT ran the first Your Green Future (YGF) event in Cheltenham. This programme gave UK Secondary school students an understanding of the breadth and excitement in the Green Economy.

2011 ICN secured funding from DfID for a 4 year programme in Kenya which established 12 Centres for unemployed school leavers giving them training in green livelihoods. These Centres were called Climate Action Teams or CATs.

2011 YGF ran in University of the West of England.

2012 Having completed the 3-year Barclays project by 2011 ICN then won funding from EU programme Youth In Action to deliver 15 Model Climate Conferences in UK, Poland and Czech Republic. This major programme was delivered to time and budget and with considerable acclaim.

2013 Rationalisation of growing and diversified activities subsequent to John Davidsons death in May 2012 led to:

• Severn Wye Energy Agency taking over the lead role in managing YGF events with ICN staying as a delivery partner.
• Living Earth Foundation assuming control of the DfID funded CATs youth programme in Kenya.

2014 Global Dimension Trust and InterClimate Network merge to become a single Charity, The InterClimate Trust. The former InterClimate Network now forms a brand and trading style belonging to InterClimate Trust.