Growing Green Champions
Green Champions are an evolution of the adult version of our original “Park Ambassador” proposal. Although COVID19 meant we couldn’t easily role out the original proposal it did give us more time to develop it into something more ambitious than our original plans. The first part of new programme was developing a Green Champions Training Programme for anyone interested in championing green spaces in Birmingham.
The Green Champion Training Programme aimed to:
• Increase the confidence and resilience of participants in the face of change, empowering them to act as ‘change agents’ within their communities.
• Encourage participants to network and explore new roles and partnerships.
• Help develop a cross-boundary culture of knowledge sharing and partnership working.
• Increase wider engagement with the objectives of the Future Parks Accelerator programme in Birmingham
After the initial launch event 60 participants were split into digital teams of around 8-10 people to explore concepts of individual leadership and change management principles in relation to championing green spaces via online sessions.
These first Green Champions came from across the city and include, Friends Group members, volunteers, early years specialists, parks officers, planning officers, housing officers, community group members, Naturally Birmingham team members and many others. We discussed what we like and don’t like about green spaces, what we want to see more of and what we want to change and how we can change things.
Growing Together – getting to know you.
The group broke the ice by sharing their “growing together” pictures of plants growing in their gardens, kitchens and home offices. Here is a selection from emerging seedlings to glorious flowers.
Themes for action
These are based on the topics and issues brought up during Workshop 2:
- Parks as community/social hubs
- Green planning
- Social prescribing: Nature for Wellbeing
- Access for all
- Green Schools Network
- Spreading the word
- 100% Litter free
We will be reporting back on the progress on these themes through the last three workshops. If you want to get involved with any of these themes or find out more about the Green Champions Training Programme please contact our Project Officer at Daniel.Lloyd@birmingham.gov.uk
Every Day Participation
Going forward we hope being a Green Champion will be about supporting the City of Nature Vision 25 YEAR CITY OF NATURE VISION – Naturally Birmingham Future Parks Project for Birmingham’s green spaces. It will be about everyday participation, we need Green Champions to:
The fantastic bit is there is already a whole community of Green Champions in Birmingham doing amazing work, but we want to make sure they are visible and valued, we want to make sure everyone who wants to participate can, we want to encourage people who haven’t thought about participating in green spaces to give it a go and contribute what they can, when they can.
Join the community
If you want to join this community of Green Champions and find out more you can join a WhatsApp Group by using the contact us form below to request an invitation.
Green Champions include children who are five years old and under (early years) and their families you can find out more about our Little Green Champions Programme here: Little Green Champions – Naturally Birmingham Future Parks Project and for young people who are over five years old but under 18 years old we are developing a Young Green Champions programme: Young Green Champions – Naturally Birmingham Future Parks Project when we say we want everyone to be able to participate in green spaces, we really do mean it.
Naturally Birmingham Future Parks Project 