£750,000 investment in community-led climate action in Dudley borough

Dudley CVS and partners have been awarded £578,000 by The National Lottery Community Fund to support local people to develop a deeper connection with nature and inspire community-led climate action. A collaborative project led by Dudley CVS, Workshop 24 and Ekho Collective CIC (also designed by Creart Collective CIC) is being supported through the Climate Action Fund nature and climate programme.

Dudley People’s School for Climate Justice is a community-led assemblage of activities and projects which will make it easier for people to learn from each other and connect with nature. Everyone is a teacher, and everyone is a learner. Using nature’s guidebook, place-based peer learning will lead to action for people, planet and the future.

In Dudley our most vulnerable communities are at high risk from climate change. We also have natural habitats listed as being at high risk and very high risk from climate change.* This is an opportunity for hundreds of people across Dudley borough to share their ideas, skills and knowledge to respond to the climate crisis and reimagine the structures and systems which created the climate crisis and the inequalities which people face every day. It will see neighbours, artists, learners, designers, tea makers, tinkerers, researchers, crafters, gardeners, quiet activists and more to learning together, connecting with nature and taking climate action.

The team initiating Dudley People’s School for Climate Justice have backgrounds in social art, therapy, architecture, research, education, community work and health and wellbeing. They are combining these to create a variety of activities to appeal to a wide range of people.

Dudley CVS staff from across our teams have been working on a Climate Justice Policy and Action Plan for Dudley CVS over the last year. We will be working to become a nature connected organisation and inviting others to join us. We will support people from neighbourhoods, groups, schools and colleges to help lead Dudley People’s School for Climate Justice by becoming School Stewards. This will help to generate over 40 learning and action journeys with over 150 people around a myriad of local skills and knowledge across a wide range of topics. These will add to over 20 projects involving over 300 local people being led by our partners.

To find out more about becoming School Stewards you can sign up to a one hour online or in person session at dudleyclimatejustice.eventbrite.com

Read more in our recent blog post about how and why this initiative was developed.

If you’d like to know more about our plans for Dudley People’s School for Climate Justice, and/or our work on Climate Justice across Dudley CVS, please contact Lorna Prescott: Lorna@dudleycvs.org.uk

Dudley CVS is matching the Climate Action Fund award with investment in CoLab Dudley’s work on Emerging Futures from Joseph Rowntree Foundation, and CoLab Dudley activity in 2023 and 2024 supported by funding from Arts Council England and Reaching Communities.

*Source: West Midlands Combined Authority report on Climate Change Impacts, Nov 2022