Eco Anxious Resilient Peer SupportSurefoot’s Eco Anxious Resilient (EAR) Peer Support is a new project to develop free-to-access peer support tools, training and workshops for campaigners, activists and others experiencing eco-anxiety. We share insights from people who are managing to safeguard their own mental and emotional wellbeing, while also constructively engaging in the fight against global warming and biodiversity loss. Peer support has a long and proven track record of authentic help for people who want to connect into support networks with others who understand their struggles and can share ideas and techniques to help them stay resilient. Please explore and share our page of resources and insights and get in touch! Peer support training and resourcesA Daily Reading for EarthDip into our selection of readings - there to inspire and help you take one day at a time. This is a fledgling selection of short readings born of compassion and gratitude for all people whose lives are guided by their fundamental love of Planet Earth. People who identify as 'eco anxious' have shared their experience and the sources of their personal resilience. We aim to gather a new, original reading for every day of the year. If you feel inspired to write a page based on keeping well and active in an age of climate and nature emergencies, we would be pleased to hear from you. We're looking for a maximum of 380 words for each reading and it must be an original piece written by the person submitting it. All entries that are published will be anonymous. For more information, or if you have any questions, email audrey@ecoanxiousresilient.org Peer support insightsProject background - why now?This project is based on the assertion that processing our eco-anxiety and climate grief can lead to personal empowerment. The focus is on peer-to-peer support and training in the use of self-care techniques developed for general mental health well-being. In 2021, Glasgow witnessed its largest ever public display of unity during the COP26 UN Climate Change conference. There was a life-affirming, intergenerational atmosphere of solidarity around climate justice. But the high hopes once again rapidly dimmed to a glimmer behind thick layers of broken political and corporate promises, greenwashing, apathy and hellish statistics about species extinction, pollution and concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere. In response, Surefoot and environmental campaigner, Audrey Baird joined forces - Find out more Contact us and keep in touchKeep updated on the EAR Peer Support project via Surefoot’s Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter. You can also sign up to Surefoot’s newsletter. Or, contact Audrey directly for more information on EAR Peer Support audrey@ecoanxiousresilient.org. Additional support - useful links
Eco-anxiety definition within image - Source Oxford Languages
 Improving energy efficiency and thermal comfort in community spaces, Surefoot working in collaboration with HeatHack is delighted to announce confirmation of an Ingenious Public Engagement Award from the Royal Academy of Engineering. For this project, a small team of people from across Surefoot and HeatHack will be working together to deliver a programme to help UK-based churches and community buildings to understand what a net zero future means for their premises. It will help them not just understand energy efficiency and thermal comfort in difficult buildings, but also to think about how their buildings should be used in their local contexts and how to make this change happen. APPLY NOW! We are recruiting community groups and volunteer engineers NOW for sessions starting September – December 2022. To apply, please use these forms. Project Overview - important but challenging buildings Overall, the project will deliver the programme to 40 small groups involved in running church and community premises from across the UK. These important community spaces are difficult to move to Net Zero. BUT they are some of the hardest buildings to manage because they are traditionally built, often listed, and not designed to modern heating requirements! This Surefoot project has two main objectives:
Surefoot has been awarded £29,600 for this project which will run from May 2022 through July 2023. Surefoot associate Jean Carletta had the inspiration for this project and successfully bid for the opportunity with the Royal Academy of Engineering. Project Process HeatHack’s volunteer engineers will work with church and community groups to help them understand the basic principles behind thermal modelling and apply them to their own spaces. The programme combines some technical learning and engineering investigation of the premises and heating and ventilation systems with Surefoot’s hallmark facilitation approach. Under the engineers’ guidance, each group will complete four two-hour exercises in their buildings over the course of a year. They will also be equipped with devices to capture temperature data from their buildings. Participants will explore how heating systems work, heat loss, thermal comfort and possible future changes to their buildings in the drive to Net Zero. Importantly, the process includes how best to bring people along with enabling change as the groups then plan and hold a community consultation showcasing their learning. This project will change the futures of some important buildings and create a culture in which communities remember to seek out and value the engineers who live among them. Open content materials will be produced for wider circulation. Registrations open in early June 2022 with the first groups starting in September. More about HeatHack HeatHack is a group of volunteers working on an interesting question: how can we make Scotland’s community spaces comfortable on less energy use? Over the years, HeatHack has developed techniques for:
HeatHack’s work empowers the volunteers who manage community buildings to have the right conversations with the professionals they engage, leading to better building outcomes. The HeatHack website contains information about this programme. If you want to know more, you can use the contact form, or email us and ask us to give you a call. The Surefoot Effect CIC is a Community Interest Company that helps communities, businesses and governments put sustainability and resilience at the heart of what they do. Our approach encourages people to explore their emotions, motivations and behaviours and to make positive changes for themselves and their communities.
The premise of the project is that mental disorders are the fastest-growing category of diseases with which health systems must cope and that a high-quality education promoting emotional, social and cognitive development is widely recognized as key to successful interventions in breaking the cycle of intergenerational disadvantage. The project will promote an educational approach to foster good mental health through empathy, self-discovery and expression, creativity and innovation in pre-adolescents/adolescents and to support them in better understanding themselves and finding commonality with others. Partners will create an innovative curriculum with specific competencies and methods to identify and support students’ identity formation and to address challenging behaviours and strong emotional responses. Our partners in this project are Institut IVIZ (Slovenia), Red Europea los Jóvenes importan ahora (Spain) and Unglingasmiðjurnar Stígur og Tröð (Iceland). Project insights
The project’s main goal is to connect European cultural heritage with human and environmental health. This includes guided walking routes and a recipe book to highlight European culture, promote exercise, mindfulness, nutrition, and work towards sustainability goals. The walking routes, the recipe book and all the activities associated with the project will be put into a mobile application that people will be able to access from anywhere in Europe. Our partners in this project are Centro de Estudios Ecológicos Abrazohouse (Spain), Innovation Frontiers IKE (Greece) and VsI Ziniu Kodas (Lithuania). Project insights |
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