1st Greenisland Brownies' Climate Week - doing something green for St Patrick's Day

17 March dawned wet and grey in Belfast, which was a bit of a worry for 1^st Greenisland Brownies, as we were off hedge planting!  We planned to do something green for St Patrick’s Day and celebrate Climate Week too. Thankfully when we arrived at the Conservation Volunteers site at Knockbracken Health Care Park in Belfast it was beginning to brighten up beautifully and the legendary 40 shades of green in Northern Ireland had begun to show through in the sunlight.

Nine Brownies were all full of energy and ready to go!

We were met on site by Chris from the Conservation Volunteers.  He explained to us what we would be doing and why.  Today we would be planting a native hedgerow (made up of hazel, rose and blackthorn). It was being planted to prevent cows breaking into the allotments and destroying the crops.  After some fun warm up exercises flapping like birds, and a safety chat about barbed wire and thorns, we were ready to get planting.

Whilst some of the other volunteers on the site began clearing the area for planting, 1^st Greenisland Brownies worked together and planted two trees, a Mountain Ash and a Cherry, that would reduce our carbon footprint significantly.  Then began the hard work of the day planting the hedge.  The girls split into groups of two or three and worked with a volunteer along the length of the hedge.  They learnt how to make an upside down “T” for planting and where each root began (they where shown that the plant changed colour at its root tips) and that this was where it needed to be planted from. 

The girls planted around a mile of hedgerow and by 1.15 we had finished all the planting and were really hungry.  We enjoyed a lovely barbeque outside in the March sunshine!

The girls all discovered that it was going to be an early spring.  Buds had already formed on the trees, tadpoles where already in the ponds, we saw a ladybird and of course lots of other creepy crawlies whilst digging… much to the delight of several of our more adventurous girls.

The girls had a wonderfully active day and completed a worthwhile project.  They also made us as leaders extremely proud of them. 

We do hope to be able to work with the Conservation Volunteers again in the future.

Planting trees in Croydon!

On Saturday 2^nd March, Rainbows, Brownies and Guides from Selsdon, Croydon, got together to plant sixty trees in honour of the Queen’s Jubilee at our local National Trust woodland.

The trees were received from the Woodland Trust via the Sainsbury’s Active Kids Scheme. We planted a huge variety of trees including, birch, hawthorn, dogwood, rose, cherry, holly and hazel. The Friends of Selsdon Woods, the local management group, had prepared the area for us and helped us to plant and water in the trees.

The girls had a great time and loved the fact that they will be able to visit in years to come to watch “their” trees growing and making our area green!

Jo Wheeler – Leader, 1^st Selsdon Rainbows, 10^th Selsdon Brownies and 2^nd Selsdon Guides.


For more information about the Jubilee Woods project and how you could take part in the UK, click here.

Saving the environment in Our Cabaña, Mexico!

Debbi Seibel, Assistant Program Manager at Our Cabaña

The Our Cabaña program team is made up of people from lots of different countries of the world, and their views on the environment are quite different. Our team got ready for World Thinking Day by comparing our home countries and their environmentally-friendly practices such as recycling and park clean-up projects.

We then thought about Mexico, where we are all living now. The World Health Organisation says that the pollution levels here are much higher than they should be - In Mexico City alone, there are nearly three million cars! There are things happening to change this – taxis can only be used six days a week, and there are new rules to limit pollution from cars.

Everyone at  Our Cabana celebrating World Thinking Day

Here at Our Cabaña, we started our environmental activities before World Thinking Day. We’re doing a lot more walking rather than relying on taxis – good for the environment, and for our health! We’ve also changed our light-bulbs to environmentally friendly ones, and make sure lights and computers are always turned off when not in use. We try not waste a thing in our craft house, and re-use our scrap paper. It can be difficult to start a movement, but we are making great strides.



Making beautiful things from flowers

When World Thinking Day arrived, we were prepared to promote the actions for environmental change. We hosted 250 Guides from various towns in Mexico, as well as 30 adults from around the world. The Guides thought about various actions that they can do in their home, school or other programs. Some learned about using the sun to prepare snacks, or how to make fashion accessories using recycled materials, while others made promotional signs to encourage their families to recycle and turn off switches or taps.

We all learned how the small efforts we do individually gain momentum to make big changes in the environment!

Guides showing off what they've made

Wythall Senior Section - are young people bored of hearing about the environment?

We had a big discussion about respect for the environment – and respect for people
too.

When it came to the environment we felt that, having talked about recycling and global warming since we were very young, we’re now bored with hearing about the issue. The only members of our group who are still interested in talking about it are those who are studying the subject.

One of the problems with keeping the young involved, we feel, is that this is a long term problem that happens slowly with very little drama – and young people (in general) tend to have a short-term view.

We need to find a way to keep young people interested. We feel that the UK does do more than many other countries but not as much as other places like Scandinavia. We’re interested to find out how other people feel their country is at respecting their environment.

We then began to chat about respect for people, and feel that the current pressure from the media and peers can make girls compare themselves to impossible images, and lose their self-respect. Celebrities often do not help young girls’ body image or give a great example on handling relationships.

We know some people are judged by their relationships and say that their ‘boyfriends complete them’. We are not really sure how to change this but do feel that girls, in particular, need to start to believe that they are important for who they are not what others want them to be.

123rd Birmingham Guides challenge you to show your respect for the planet

We got together to chat about what we think about respect for the planet. We think it’s really important! During our chat, all we thought of at first was big stuff, like saving endangered species and diversity of plants and animals.

Then we started talking about things we can all do ourselves to show our respect for the world – and there’s quite a lot – even little things like not leaving TVs on standby and using energy-saving light bulbs. We could also encourage people to install solar panels.

When talking about global warming we thought about pollution and everything we can do as Guides to reduce our contributions, such as reducing the amount of smoke from bonfires, not throwing rubbish on the floor, recycling more and composting fruit waste.

So, we want to know – why isn’t this being done by everyone? We think there should be more adverts/leaflets, more bins and maybe make laws to force people to recycle. What could be done in your area?

To show our respect for the environment, we’ve decided to visit a local beauty spot to identify any issues like litter and do our bit to help.

We’ve got a great game idea too – the litter game! Hide something valuable like sweets inside a pile of rubbish (only clean and safe rubbish with no sharp edges) – there are lots of piles spread around the room. The first patrol to find the valuable object wins! It shows that rubbish can be valuable and we shouldn’t throw it all away. Does anyone else have any environment games they’d like to share?