The Green Grants Panel

 

A year ago, students at Newcastle University who attended the first SCAN Green Market were given an interesting proposition :

"Would you like to be part of a small group of students who will give away money to some deserving groups?"

The eligible groups had to be working with children or young people on a project that - in some way - promoted sustainability. We would have a rigorous checking procedure for how they would use the money (anything from £200 to £2000), and the ones that would be successful in their bid would be those that put the children right at the forefront of their project :

- Did the idea come from the children themselves?

- Were they actively involved in designing the project? 

- Would many children or young people benefit from it over a long time?

Other questions had to address how good the idea was - and after all, how can sustainability be promoted amongst young people? *

Seven students joined the first Green Grants Panel. They took part in training sessions to understand and take on board the judging criteria so that their decision-making would be neutral and fair. They learnt from good examples, got to know each other for the first time, and worked out how best to reach decisions in a fair and equal manner. We weren't sure at the beginning if they would need additional support or staff guidance, but it quickly turned out they were easily able and competent to make good decisions with the minimum of support.

On decision-making day, each proposal was scored against a matrix by the individual students. Then the scores were compared and members of the panel discussed their reasonings for why they gave particular scores to some proposals, and higher or lower scores to others. This discussion enabled the students - in a real context with financial power at their fingertips - to debate the merits of various attempts at getting children involved in more sustainable behaviour. Many issues came up -
what IS sustainability anyway? Can sustainability be achieved if it's not embedded in a community? Is a great, deep-green project more important, or does involving the maximum number of people in a small behaviour change make more impact overall?

Six projects received funding from this first panel meeting, and their ideas are in action right now. They include a safer walking to school project, a community orchard, a composting scheme, and a garden project where children would grow their own food. The students on the Green Grants Panel were also shortlisted for the ncl+ award for sustainability action in recognition of their efforts from Newcastle University.

A second panel of students was recruited this year. They received the same training and are currently informing those community groups who successfully received funding for the coming months. The project as a whole was such a success, that despite the  Green Grant funds being now mostly assigned, there is an innovative attempt to extend the scheme out to Northumberland in 2015.

On 10th December we held a debriefing session in which the current panel members addressed 3 questions about their experience. The discussion extended much beyond these, however, and it is even possible that some of these students will be taking up the baton themselves and making new sustainability projects happen with youth groups. (After all, they've been exposed to some great ideas, weighed them up and considered which are the most exciting, most likely to make an impact, so who's in a better position to make some great ones happen?)

In this blog post I will include a few comments made during this discussion : for a more in-depth report you will have to wait, and contact scanproject.union@ncl.ac.uk nearer the summer when the  practical results of the Green Grants are in.

 

What was your experience of being on the Green Grants Panel?

 "It was quite exciting, quite good to hear these proposals.  I'm from a country background so it's quite surprising to me, all the stuff on offer in the city, all the stuff going on not in just the main institutions."

"It was good to hear other people’s opinions, because I’ve obviously got my own opinions of these groups but it’s different, especially from people from different backgrounds about who thinks it’s a good project and how people can go about it in different ways."

"This work is not like a business game, it's a serious funding matter, and what surprised me  most is [the degree to which we] judge every organisation. We asked such a lot of questions to reach the decision and didn't just use the organisation's reputation or their closeness to us to judge: we asked questions and put them at a certain level for each one."

[Yet despite these judging criteria] "it was still quite subjective - we still found some of the groups didn’t quite fit the criteria, which made it much more subjective to think about what does this mean.

I think that’s a good thing, the objective and the subjective – you could still be generous and charitable, you could still point out what was a good feature and think 'we can support that'."

 

Would you recommend it to students in future? Would you recommend we change it in future, for example to have a mixture of students & staff instead of just students making the decisions?

"I felt quite empowered."

"It was a good decision. I really liked that it was just students."

"It was good that Natasha has done it before – she was like the boss! If there was a bit of indecision then Natasha had a bit of hindsight from last year so she could use her past experiences for suggesting one way of approaching it."

"Yes it was comforting to have someone with a bit of experience as well. I would definitely recommend it for a future person interested."

"Compared to other SCAN volunteering it’s just a different way because .. it’s not active out in the community but it’s the backbones to it, it’s the planning. Those kids groups are going to do those projects - and Libby’s involved in a couple of them. We’re actually giving them the tools to do it so that’s quite nice because you don’t really see that in any other situation.

"You see different angles and especially because in an age of austerity there’s not enough funding it’s really nice to then have an opportunity to think “oh this is a really good cause” and give it."

 

How did you negotiate different perspectives on the final decision for how the funding should be allocated?

"We would have been lost without the criteria because there were things we wouldn’t have thought about like the management of the money and the organisation itself – we knew that the YMCA was massive for example but we might not have known about Kids Kabin [in Walker] and it showed us that."

"That’s why it’s good that we were unbiased and like an outside group so we could make our own decisions."

"We also negotiated on the information they had on how they gave their proposal, between each other.  We disagreed sometimes."

"There were a lot of factors we had to consider when we were negotiating and discussing. Such as the longevity of the project."

"Some of them didn’t score as well as others but then their project was probably more beneficial to children or the environment so they have a huge boost – they got brownie points rather than criteria points!"

 

What do you understand sustainability to be?

"I already understood a lot about the practical side of sustainability, but then after the discussion I realised it’s a lot about the community awareness and an attitude as well, which is why it’s about the kids."

"I also see sustainability from a community sustainability aspect – trying to make it a nicer environment in a social way."

"I’ve done projects like these with schools when I was younger. When I was in secondary school I was in a youth project. I never really knew where the projects came from, I just knew they happened. I was in this little group and we got approached to design a park near where I live with swings and everything, and then now when I go home there's that park there still.

I’ve always had a sustainability head on me since I was little but for some kids it’s just not big on their agendas or their families’ outlook. But then when kids actually interact with these projects and think what can they do – they’re very small scale but they realise they can achieve something. I mean it’s difficult to create a really big sustainable project. Maybe it's just these smaller things that you have to do."

SCAN volunteers (including current panel-member Libby) in action supporting one of the successful Green Grants projects in Fenham, Newcastle.

* For ideas of how to promote more sustainable behaviour amongst young people, look out for the reports back from the youth projects, schools and community organisations who received funding for their ideas from the Green Grants Panel (such as the Throckley safe streets idea, above). The best ideas and learning experiences will be reported here in summer 2015. 

Student Volunteers & Geordie Kids at Rupert's Wood, October Half term

 

 

 

This blog post includes the notes made by several student volunteers, all of whom assisted with, led activities at, cooked up food and kept young people safe during the October half term. We had a fantastic range of kids, and a fantastic set of student volunteers, so despite the lateness of the season a great, messy, loud, dark, hot & cold, wet & muddy, fire-smoked running around time was had by all. Click on the images to enlarge the text.

Roll on the next camps in Easter next year.

Blooming Good – Newcastle Uni’s Student Eats Allotment Project

I’ve been wanting to grow vegetables ever since I was in primary school. The idea that you could put something in the ground and have it become so much more than a seed is all sorts of amazing. However, I tend to over-think things so the thought of the many factors that go into vegetable gardening was slightly overwhelming. Also, every time I planted something and it actually grew, it basically meant that Christmas had come early for the neighbourhood’s troop of monkeys. Alas, my hopes and dreams of successfully living off the land were thwarted.

And then I discovered the Student Eats Project…Yaaay! First of all, the fact that Newcastle has so many allotments is wonderful – we certainly don’t have these dotted about the suburbs back home in Durban and more’s the pity. The first day I went to NUSU’s allotment, I had no idea what to expect. Jon, or Grumps as I like to call him, came bounding out of the shed, (yes, he bounds) and promptly took me on a tour of the premises. He is clearly proud of how the allotment has transformed over the last year and deservedly so. The allotment is a joy to behold - every time a plant is plucked up to reveal something colourful, I am reminded of the wonders of nature.

Over the last 10 weeks I have reaped what SCAN volunteers before me have sown. I have made a kale pasta, a cauliflower casserole, a bean curry and a red Christmas salad, and the main ingredients were all from the Student Eats allotment. Organic produce is expensive so it’s fantastic that students have access to it, either through the garden or when produce is dropped off at the Union.
 

 

It remains to be seen whether my hands of doom will turn into green fingers, but Jon has been patient and encouraging and I am sure that over the course of the next 8 months, I will learn more about horticulture than I ever thought I would. The allotment has been a lovely place to volunteer in relaxed surroundings with good company – volunteer times are about as flexible as you can get and the chap in charge is the proverbial bees’ knees J Although, if you wanted to see real bees’ knees, you could do that too because honey is made on site.
Do yourself a favour and check out  the Student Eats Project.

 

Text & photo of allotment produce supplied by Fathima Mahomedy (MA Media & Public Relations), seen here sharing soup with other allotment volunteers.

On Tuesday 23rd September, veteran volunteers helped SCAN demonstrate our projects and recruit new students. While some ran stalls in the Societies' Fair (for the SCAN Committee, Student Eats Society & Stu Brew Society), Viet and Betty demonstrated apple pressing outside on the lawn outside NUSU.

 

A short video of the apple crushing in action is here. We all took turns cutting out the stalks and bad bits from apples (which had been collected by children from Scotswood Natural Community Garden). Then we filled up the apple crusher (borrowed from another partner of ours, Rob from Wild Harmony who provides training in bushcraft out in Northumberland).

 

Once full, we took turns to turn the handle to crush the apples and then Viet had to take over. We didn't have a working apple press to hand, so instead we physically squeezed the crushed apples inside a muslin cloth. And by 'we', I mean mostly 'him'. New students and staff came along to taste the resulting apple juice - as fresh as apple juice can get. Together we discussed flavours, the oxidising process that turns apples brown, and locations around Newcastle which had apple trees available for more scrumping. One new student had worked in an fruit juice factory in Essex, another told us about a likely apple tree by Castle Leazes, and another asked to take away a satchelful of apples for home.

The day after crushing apples, Viet came back to help water the Swan Islands in Exhibition Park (a video about this is here). At the moment he is in the process of applying for jobs, and while we hope that he will be successful, we know that it will mean he will no longer be able to help with so many projects. This is normal for student volunteering, and with his help we know there will be new faces coming along to help pick apples, water plants and grow food next year.

With our legs dangling in the water, we took a break to watch the swans and the baby coots in the reeds. He said "this is what I dreamed of when I was a child".

I took the opportunity to do a quick interview about his volunteering :


Have you volunteered with any other SCAN projects?

"I have been to a few other SCAN projects like the guerrilla gardening, where I helped to repaint the couches at Leazes Park, but it is at the allotment that I spend most of my volunteering time.  Probably because I feel more comfortable working with soil, plants and nature stuff."

When did you first get involved?

"It was in June I think, I just finished my last assignment and didn't want to start with the dissertation right away so I was looking for some volunteer work, preferably outdoors and with either plants or animals.  I actually got the information from Betty [a friend, also a SCAN volunteer] so I went to Phil at SCAN and described my preferences and got the information about the work at the allotment.  At our home back in Slovakia, we have a large family garden and I used to spend lots of time out in the garden so I guess it just feels natural and relaxing for me to work in a garden environment, so that's why I stick with the allotment - and Jon has been really fun to work with."

 

What is it you enjoy about growing food at the allotment?

"The feeling of working outdoors and with nature is amazing to me, kind of recharging my battery.  And the free vegetables to take away is also a plus!"

 

 Are there any particular volunteer tasks that stand out in your memory?

"I just joined in this June so not a very long time.  The tasks are mostly kind of every day stuff, but I built a kind of hub for the pieces of wood that we collect from
all over the garden to prevent them from getting wet in rainy days (picture below).  And there are many days where I shared my work with other volunteers at the allotment like Jasmine, Betty, Jack and we had really good chats throughout the work so it was really nice."