Campaigns
Cleaner Sparkbrook
Our Cleaner Sparkbrook campaign has made a huge impact across Sparkbrook in reducing litter, creating awareness of the litter problem in Sparkbrook and getting local residents involved.
Through the support of ACP this has taken shape through a pro-active steering group, who lead on all actions relating to reducing litter and how these activities will be run.
Activities were incentivised by providing residents rewards for their commitment and recognition for their hard work. Birmingham City Council have also been involved by providing equipment and resources to support the residents.
The local Councillor Shabrana Hussain has been involved in all aspects of the project to ensure that residents were aware of their rights and supporting them in reporting cases of fly tipping.
Local clean ups / litter picks had been become regular from monthly to weekly on Thursdays, this was co-ordinated and lead by local residents. Over the weeks they have collected bags of litter which was picked up by refuse collection.
The project gave opportunity for people experiencing isolation
to meet new people and get involved in a wide range of
activities. These were through the wider activities funded by the
Big Lottery and Aging Better. We have had up to 20 regular
people coming and this also gave them the opportunity to
discuss further development for Sparkbrook. We have also built
networks with the Princes Trust involving young people to build
a peace garden to help reduce isolation of those over 50.
Getting Close to Nature is a joint partnership with National Trust to deliver exciting nature activities tha encourage parents and carers to get involved with their children. In its fifth year running, hundreds of children have benefitted with educational, social, fun and creative activities all held at our local Garden.
The project reaches families with limited access to open green spaces. Activities are carefully planned using creative ways of interacting with children using natural resources that can improve the child's cognitive, physical, social and mental wellbeing.
Activities could be easily done at home with the family – and parents took away lots of new skills to share at home. These were planned to encourage families to:
· learn and experience positive activities to appreciate green spaces
· encouraging children’s experience of outdoor play and their exposure to nature.
Free play encourages children to think creatively and gain a deeper understanding of themselves and the wider
world. The project also helped communities come out their comfort zone. To widen their experiences we held an overnight outdoor camp for families to get the opportunity of experiencing camp life.
Wider benefits through Volunteering Every year the project is lead by local volunteers, after completion of a Getting Closer to Nature Course, they are trained to deliver the following activities:
· Bug Hotels
· Bird Feeders and Wildlife Habitats
· Planting for Wildlife
· Allotment Creation
· Bush-craft and Survival Skills
· Camp-craft and Overnight Camp
All volunteers were encouraged to learn about each of the activities, to develop their confidence, improve community cohesion and their local area. Some of the volunteers felt the activities help their mental well-being as the activities gave them purpose. For those experiencing isolation the project helped reduced their levels of loneliness.
They were developing new skills, some of whom could pass on their children and many felt they were giving something valuable back to their community. Volunteers were trained to facilitate activities, these involved leading groups and taking ownership of the tasks. Each volunteer is awarded a recognition certificate for their involvement.
Getting Closer To Nature
The Growing Histories project was created to learn more about small-scale food production in the city.
We wanted to know how popular home vegetable gardening is, what types of fruit and vegetables people grow, and how they benefit from growing their own food. We believe that fruit and vegetable gardening enriches people’s lives in
many ways and we want to encourage Birmingham residents to grow their own food and to give people more opportunities to grow food together and learn from each other.
Whether they had a huge garden or just a few plants in a window box, we asked gardeners to talk about why they grow food, about their memories of gardening and the importance of growing food in their lives.
We hope that their stories will be an inspiration to others and will help us all to live healthier and happier lives. The Growing Histories Project was made possible by the kind support of the National Lottery Heritage Fund.
Growing Histories
