We are very pleased to announce that out of 38 applicants, we were able to fund 18 successful projects in Round 4 of EF’s grant-giving program. A warm congratulations to those projects! We look forward to following their development over the coming year.
See below for a list of the projects that were funded:
Rethinking Conflict / Gary Mason
Moving from Competitive Victimhood to Inclusive Victimhood in Conflicted Societies.
The politicising of unhealthy victimhood in both post-conflict Northern Irish society and conflicted Israeli/Palestinian society fuels the belief that the lives of one section of the community are valued over another’s, creating division and dehumanising the other. This project aims to move people from this concept of competitive victimhood to inclusive victimhood through radical listening and dialogue. It will use the power of story to help those perceived as the ‘other’ to hear the story and pain of the other. The aim is to show that whatever one’s nationalistic identity, it can never supersede one’s common and shared humanity.
Beneficiaries: The project will be located in the Irish/British context in Belfast, Dublin and the Israeli/Palestinian context in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, with a maximum of 20 people per meeting.
Write By You / Sarah Tinsley
This is a small-budget pilot scheme to be run in a London school, aiming to give an opportunity for girls from diverse/disadvantaged backgrounds, BAME and LGBTQI teenagers, to work with professional writers to develop their skills, voice and confidence, something which can be especially hard for these girls to freely discover. Workshops will be extra-curricular and therefore without formal class assessment, so often the block to writing freely. Each participant will create their own polished piece in their choice of genre, and be given personal guidance on writing skills. They will also work collaboratively to create a printed anthology, and take part in their own celebration event for families and friends to share in their success and receive a printed edition of their work.
Beneficiaries: Selected students from a school in Haringey, London.
Circo Kernow / Brett Jackson
Chyen Plen Well-being Programme.
The project aims to bring people isolated by poverty together into a community to address mindfulness, to build connection, improve health, spirits, and empower new ideas and problem solving. It provides access to nature in a zero-emissions space at their centre, and incorporates courses in mindfulness, yoga, creative movement and organic farming. Circo Kernow is an established project offering accredited training in physical health and organic farming complimenting other services in Cornwall where training and support is harder to access.
Beneficiaries: Cornwall, urban and rural. The participants will be 16+; 300 beneficiaries in taster sessions; 50 minimum attending full courses, and 24 partners/staff/volunteers.
Outsider Music / Jon Hall
OM Sound and Spirit
The project aims, over a 4-5 month period, to take a group of up to 15 people through a focused programme, developing their creative abilities and self-awareness, leading to a final music-based performance. Participants are chosen mainly through various referral agencies in North London, with self-referrals possible. The profile of participants is of being ‘left behind’ by normal services but, at the same time, fully able to participate and therefore gain the full benefits of the programme, to discover ‘wholeness and meaning’. The programme addresses the issue of “how poorly conventional services incorporate creative and spiritual dimensions of healing.” Both facilitators, a music therapist and a yoga therapist, have a background in mental health. The programme includes group, pair, and one-to-one work.
Beneficiaries: Up to 15 people.
Made in Hackney / Sarah Bentley
Community Cookery Class – Learning to Love Plants.
This project addresses health inequalities, disconnectedness in communities, and environmental issues by bringing people together around food, in order to learn together in a supported, non-judgemental space. Through networking it will be promoted to those most in need, and will deliver 30 cookery classes over one year to the low waged, unemployed, migrants, those with poor health, carers and BAME groups. It will also address climate change issues. The participants will receive practical knowledge, skills, experience and inspiration aimed to improve their quality of life through learning to cook with 100% plant based meals.
Beneficiaries: Participants will be drawn from London, predominantly from Hackney, and 30% from other boroughs to attend multiple classes.
Devon Development Education / Sue Errington
Building Global Youth Resilience.
This project is about building a sense of social justice in young people, considering discrimination, prejudice and racism. It aims to broaden perspectives and embrace new ways of thinking, and develop meaning and purpose. Workshops will be held to explore culture and create experiences to build self-confidence and identity. DDE is committed to addressing issues faced by disadvantaged people including BAME by creating connection, identity, and changing behaviours.
Beneficiaries: 180 Year 8 pupils in 2 rural secondary schools in north and mid-Devon. 20 BAME young people, 20 disadvantaged British white young people and 50 teachers will take part in training, workshops and impact days.
Courageous Community Conversations / Stefanie Kent
The scope of CCC is two-fold – in person (10 sessions) and online (12 monthly sessions). The project is focused on creating dedicated spaces for communities to have in-depth conversations around the challenges of today’s world, about what matters to people and communities, including climate crisis, food supply, housing issues, conflict resilience, diversity, power and privilege. The project connects with local community leaders and artists, who participate in the conversations, share their stories about leadership, heritage/local art, and offer collaborative, creative sessions for all participants to take part in. The aim is to connect, inspire, and create trust.
Beneficiaries: 500 people of all ages, communities all over the UK, asylum seekers and refugees in Ceredigoin and Carmarthenshire, and people who would find it difficult to engage in person.
Mindful Action on Whiteness / Paula Haddock
This programme aims to address systemic racism and the racial inequality and social exclusion resulting from it, by supporting people who are racialised as White to do the deep individual work of understanding race, privilege, othering and bias from a historical, social and psychological perspective. It will involve testing a participatory, group-based learning process that explores and dismantles internalised racism; it aims to determine which approaches, materials and processes lead to maximum learning and pro-social change, and will be developed, monitored and evaluated with the support of an oversight team who are diversity and inclusion specialists.
Beneficiaries: 4 groups of 6-8 people each will be selected to take part in 6-8 online sessions, which will be run every 3-4 weeks over a 6-month period.
Growing Resilient Communities / Sandhya Dave
This project aims to bring together people of different generational and heritage backgrounds to help them deal with issues of isolation, disempowerment & collective global citizenship by learning Shiatsu bodywork, meditation and dialogic inquiry, together. The participants will be guided to engage their body-heart-mind spirit as a resource for themselves to stay well. They will learn to give and receive Shiatsu bodywork massage, and will be introduced to meditation practice in 3 different forms. An event will be organised where the beneficiaries will connect with each other and share their learning with a wider community.
Beneficiaries: 3 wellbeing groups in 3 economically disadvantaged areas of Exeter City in Devon; 6-week course of weekly meetings; 25 individuals per area (75 participants in total); ages 10-85. The final event is planned for a wider community of around 150 people, including local councillors. 133 people of various age and heritage have already expressed their interest in the project.
Active Hope / Sophie Howarth
This is stage two of a previously funded project. It aims to build capacity based on the learning and experience from stage one, through the delivery of 4 facilitator training programmes and a masterclass. The project will support and enable people from diverse and marginalised backgrounds to cultivate capacity for learning, understanding and forming allegiances through their commitment to network and act for social and ecological justice. This training will be based in principles of inter-connectedness, inclusivity, wellbeing and compassion. An Outreach Workshop product will also be developed for wider use, and the trainees will hold a public event on connecting social movements, and further raise awareness.
Beneficiaries: London based. Primary group is 12-16 people recruited for their capacity to deliver workshops for different groups. They will receive training and mentorship; and will be recruited from a range of social and ecological justice groups, specifically from BAME backgrounds. Secondary group will consist of workshop attendees, plus event participants.
The Woodland Presents / Alex Tempest
The Tree-Radicals.
The project aims to affect a paradigm shift for a more eco-centric approach to woodlands. This includes cultivating a sense of stewardship in British forestry practices in the ways timber is harvested and used. The main objective is to create a year-long programme of study. This will form the backbone of a 9-month programme in the project’s second year. During the first year participants will develop and run 4 seasonal (2-week-long) modules. Beneficiaries will gain a systems–wide perspective, the skills and self-realisation to become change-agents within their communities and wider society. The aim is to for this to lead to engaging with local people; to work together to devise events and activities which benefit local woods and communities. Further elements of the project include developing shorter accessible modules, online materials and open evenings/talks.
Beneficiaries: 18+ year olds who would like to incorporate trees and timber into their work; those already working with, or looking to transition to working with trees and timber; young adults from rural areas seeking to make a livelihood working with trees/timber. Recruiting locally from the south-west UK, and nationally.
The Mindfulness Initiative / Jamie Bristow
Mindfulness Policy Research.
The Mindfulness Initiative is an established policy research institution from the UK and Sweden. It will conduct research on how mindfulness training can influence the mindsets and paradigms that underpin attitudes to the environment and related solutions. It believes mindfulness training can do this by generating a shift from atomistic to holistic perspectives, increasing the ability to cope amid climate impacts, and by supporting change for sustainability. Research will be conducted through a synthesis of current research, interviews, and consultations. The results of the research will be compiled into a policy report, with content for mainstream media and video, and policy recommendations to government.
Beneficiaries: Ultimately all planetary life; political leaders and policy makers; thought leaders; academics and journalists; activists; mindfulness teachers, writers and scholars; individuals suffering from mental health implications of the climate crisis.
Fruitful Malmesbury: Growing, Sharing, Bonding / Fran Vandelli
This community-focused project aims to build resilience, strengthen the diverse community and move towards a regenerative culture. The first phase includes developing a mini orchard with 3 fruit trees and a communal courtyard vegetable plot. The project aims to engage and train volunteers in how to plant and cultivate food for the community, as well as better understand biodiversity and their own relationship with the natural world. It will also focus on reducing waste, sharing surplus through developing a local ‘food map’, hosting communal events like apple juicing and ‘long table’ meals. There will be workshops and a school performance by local primary school students.
Beneficiaries: Various scout groups and leaders, librarians and schools; in general the residents of Malmesbury, Wiltshire.
Active Hope Training / Chris Johnstone
A Free Online Course for Positive Change.
Active Hope is about taking action to support the future we hope for in our world. Following the structure of Joanna Macy’s “the Work that Reconnects” empowerment process, Chris wants to develop, launch and host a free, accessible and engaging video-based online course that guides participants on a transformative journey, nourishing participants’ desire and capacity to make a difference in the world.
Beneficiaries: General public; there will be free online access in the UK and many EU countries.
Grandmothers’ Garden / Serayna Solanki
This pilot project aspires to design, develop, trial and refine an approach to foster an interdependent and inclusive relationship between Sustainability practitioners and a BAME collective, in order to better address the ecological crisis. Serayna will use a series of group dialogue spaces to help empower a BAME Collective, and also run an 8-hour interactive educational programme for sustainability practitioners. The aim is to help improve their approach and process to become more inclusive. The project hopes to explore colonial patterns, expand perspectives, and create new pathways.
Beneficiaries: 30+ BAME participants, 10+ organisations and networks associated with the BAME collective, and 6-8 Sustainability practitioners and their organisations, all based in London.
Ourselves Together: Engaging with Difference in North Belfast / Tim Gordon
Tim grew up in Northern Belfast, and now wants to give back to the communities he left behind as a teenager. This project will partner with an existing local organisation in Belfast, and Tim will develop and run a programme of 4 x 2-day exploratory workshops over 9 months to help challenge the prevalent divisions of religion, status, and diaspora, between the participants. Together they will focus on meeting differences within the groups, and challenge differences external to the group. The aim is for participants to form new connections and an increased trust in working together across divisions.
Beneficiaries: 6-7 professionals and 10 participants representative of the different groups in the N. Belfast neighbourhood. It is expected that families and friends and colleagues of participants will also be affected.
Into the Wild We Go / Nina Gebauer
Nina is an experienced and qualified practitioner in the Forest School model. She is funded for this year-long project for twenty 12-14 year-olds in London. Based on a recognition that at this important stage of their lives, young people often lack guidance, Nina’s project offers the development of self-confidence, a sense of meaning and purpose; the means to these being through connecting with nature, learning bushcraft skills, the use of ritual, greater self-reliance and working as a group. The young people will be chosen from schools and youth groups in North London with recognisably high levels of low-income intake. The programme will consist of 20 x 3-hour sessions offered twice a month, and 3 x 3-day themed workshops, taking place on Forest School sites on Hampstead Heath and in Waterlow Park in North London. Nina will be accompanied by one other person qualified in these practices.
Beneficiaries: 20 x 12-14 year-olds.
Rights of Nature Legal Database and Toolkit / Susie Talbot
Susie’s focus is on the fact that much of our law is based on a notion of separation from nature. A Rights of Nature (RoN) approach sees nature as having its own validity and legal rights. She wishes to create an educational resource which will be of use to lawyer and environmental groups within UK and Europe, but also with application worldwide. The database and toolkit will provide 12-15 sample cases where RoN has been applied successfully legally, and will identify the steps needed for others to follow, therefore supporting a community of practice. Susie is an experienced lawyer. She most recently co-ordinated the legal collaboration of human rights movements across 75 countries for ESCR-Net. This work has included creating a well-used database. Her aim is to complete this project in 2½ months and it will be promoted through both her website and a network of 15,000 contacts.
Beneficiaries: Lawyers seeking to apply this perspective; communities (especially those faced with climate/ecology breakdown); law students and academics; the natural world.
