Tackling climate change and facilitating local environmental improvement are the keynote highlights of this month’s Safer Communities Youth Action Projects blog.
The great news is that Tamfourhill Community Hub has secured sufficient funding to retrofit the building with a sustainable and renewable energy efficient system which will see the installation of solar panels on the roof of the building with a ASHP heat pump system along with a number of new energy efficiency measures and a battery storage system. The Tamfourhill Energy Efficiency and Net Zero project has received 80% funding from the Scottish Governments Community and Renewable Energy Scheme (CARES) with 15% match funding being recently secured from the Stirling and Clackmannanshire Environmental Trust and the final 5% being committed by the National lottery’s new Awards for All programme. This really is a success story with the Hub leading the way in Falkirk district on Scotland’s journey to net zero, this project will have significant positive environmental impacts, reducing our local carbon footprint whilst massively reducing the Hubs energy costs. This project was originally stated as a longer-term aim of the Local Community Climate Action Plan which was also linked to the local community safety strategy so on many levels both personal and professional I am overjoyed to have played a supporting role with the Hubs committee in bringing this environmentally progressive project to its actual realisation.
It is then absolutely fitting that the new recycled plastic bottle lid mural was formally unveiled on the exterior wall of the Tamfourhill Community Hub on Thursday 6th June
Reduce, Reuse & Recycle:
Tackling Climate change through creative Youth Action in Camelon & Tamfourhill
The Safer Communities Youth Action Project in collaboration with community artist Sarah Diver have been tackling climate change through creativity and Youth Action. Groups of young people have been out litter picking around Lock 14 on the Forth & Clyde Canal and other locations in Camelon and Tamfourhill to survey the number of plastics and other significant forms of litter that are being discarded. The bigger plan was to come up with innovative ways to recycle plastics into a useful and decorative community-based arts project. The recycled plastic bottle top mural is both an artistic creation which will brighten up the external wall of the Tamfourhill Community Hub and a hands-on way of exploring climate change and environmental damage through direct action. This has been a great learning experience for the groups from Carmuirs Primary School, Falkirk High School and the Community based Youth Action Group. Young people made posters located at school and at Tamfourhill Community Hub to collect bottle lids for the artwork. School groups attended led walks and litter picks and identified things in their local area which were important for them to protect including: animals, birds, insects, trees, plant life and importantly each other. The finished mural was officially opened on Thursday 6th June when the young people from Carmuirs Primary School created their own commemorative badges made entirely from recycled plastic. The Project has been part funded by Forth Environment Links Climate Change Seed funding and the Falkirk Community School Fund 2008. The mural project forms part of a wider conservation, biodiversity and Climate Change Project which has been developed and delivered by the local Youth Action Project . This has involved wild gardening and planting pollinators, tree planting in local parks and paddle pickups on the canal as part of the national upstream battle to stop plastics getting into our waterways. #Upstreambattle
Summer Programme 2024
We have another summer of exciting youth action planned and much of this programme has been funded through the Scottish Governments School Holiday Food and Activity fund. There are opportunities for 12–16-year-olds to get involved with community arts projects, a junior sports leadership award, an overnight survival challenge with the Well Wild project, angling, water-based activities on the canal and some nature, conservation and cooking based activities. Every young person who is registered onto the programme will be given an opportunity to use the summer programme as the basis to gain either a High Five or Dynamic Youth Award with some of the young volunteers working towards their Youth Achievement Awards, to book onto the activities please go to this link:
https://tamfourhill-gymnastics-club.classforkids.io/
The full programme with booking information is detailed below:
Safer Communities Youth Action Project 