Exciting new Community Climate Action initiative

Building on what we have learned from our Can Do partnership, SCA are planning an important new initiative to reach out to community groups across South Yorkshire. If you’d like to get involved in some way, either now or later, you’d be very welcome.

Public awareness of the climate and nature emergency has developed to such a level that many people are looking to do something direct and positive themselves. This may be because of frustrations with government responses, because they don’t see themselves having any agency to affect political decisions or may simply be alongside other kinds of ‘system change’ activities they are engaged in.

The focus, therefore, will be to foster and support community-based groups across South Yorkshire who want to take practical local action to help tackle the climate and nature emergency in their own neighbourhoods. These community groups may be based around streets, workplaces, a shared faith or a school PTA – anywhere that local people come together. 

This initiative, which will be called Community Climate Action Network, is part of the SCA project to develop South Yorkshire’s Digital Climate Action Hub (working title), from the Can Do South Yorkshire Website.

It will offer opportunities for groups to network, learn from each other and learn from leading organisations on climate or nature topics. Links will also be facilitated between community groups interested developing action on a specific topic with specialist groups within the SCA network who want to develop their work further. This would be a virtual network in the main, but with facility for in person events too. 

This is a similar model to one being developed by Nature Recovery Sheffield and Nature Recovery Rotherham, which is focusing specifically on nature and green spaces. We will liaise with NRS/NRR to ensure we support all community groups appropriately across the whole of South Yorkshire and can signpost them to the most relevant resources from each group.

We plan to use national and local publicity around the Great Big Green Week at the end of September to launch our network offer, and we have already started talking to Voluntary Action Sheffield (as an example) as to how they can help promote interest in this initiative. 

We intend holding in-person evening events in Barnsley, Doncaster and Rotherham to make our pitch direct and give practical examples of what we could offer. We are also discussing a more substantial ‘showcase’ event in Sheffield, more likely to be on a Saturday.

We are currently thinking through the design and search facilities, and will populate these with illustrative case studies as part of our initial offer. 

The small team involved in this work includes Bev Booker, Siobhan Laird, Geoff Cox and Vanessa Senger (as SCA Board members), Lindy Stone (as a Can Do partner), Joan Miller (from campaigning and lobbying) Vicky Phillips our Communications Officer and Chian Ying Xuan our Admin assistant.

If you would like to contribute your ideas, contacts and/or enthusiasm, please get in touch via info@southyorkshireclimatealliance.org.uk