Lead students from four schools from Bristol, Gloucestershire and Solihull came together for a unique Climate Action Event, generously hosted at Benefact House in Gloucester.

After three on-line workshops (open to all schools who had run a Climate Action Survey), this was a welcome chance for students to meet face-to-face, developing skills in: behaviour change approaches to climate change; communication; and using audience insights in their own climate action campaigns.

Photographs by Mikal Ludlow Photography

At the end of the event, students said they valued working with other schools and hearing about their sustainability actions as well as receiving feedback on their own plans from the experts in the room from a range of organisations and practitioners from: Benefact Group staff, Gloucestershire Youth Climate Group, Planet Cheltenham and Save the Children UK.

Participants fed back that the most useful learnings from the day were:

“Ways to bring people into eco club”“The amount of young people
involved in making a
difference for climate change!”
“How to properly plan and execute an eco project”“The campaign (hopefully!) and
that there are more things to look at than just doing it”

Punchline Gloucester wrote an article about the conference:

“Visiting Benefact House gave the students the opportunity to share their ideas for sustainability actions in their schools. They worked alongside other schools and experts to look at how to include behaviour change approaches to climate change, communication and audience insights in their own climate action campaigns.

Some of the ideas presented included meat-free Mondays in the school canteen, a campaign to encourage more cycling to school and efforts to improve recycling and reduce energy waste.

The ideas for their campaign were then put to an expert panel, made up of volunteers from Benefact Group, Gloucestershire Youth Climate Group, Planet Cheltenham and Save the Children UK for feedback and suggestions on how they could bring their plans to life in their schools.

“When it comes to climate, I think the opinions and ideas that really matter should come from young people. Today’s secondary school students face adult lives which will be far more impacted by climate change than those of their parents and the current generation of political and industrial leaders. So it’s right that we hear them and support them to make positive changes.”

Chris Pitt, group impact director at Benefact Group (quote given to Punchline)..

We are grateful to Benefact Group (BG) for supporting this fantastic event through their Movement For Good Awards and to Save the Children’s Great Big Green Week Children and Young People Grant towards schools’ travel. 

Written by

Michila Critchley

As Programme Director, Michila leads the design and implementation of our work and plays a key role co-ordinating our activity and team. She has deep experience in organisational development, facilitation, research and fund-raising from over twenty years’ experience working with not-for-profit organisations internationally and in the UK. Specialist knowledge includes; programme development, facilitation, strategic planning, research and funding and grants and a thorough working knowledge of a national umbrella association for development education.