‘We provide people with tangible tools, getting them to work on a mock local action campaign. I’ve had great feedback around those tools. ’
Community Facilitator: Cristel Chambers, Community Development Officer
Project: Red Cross Climate Communities Programme
Website: https://www.redcross.org.au/emergencies/climate-ready-communities/climate-ready-communities-sa/
Location: Adelaide, South Australia
Funding: Funded locally by Red Cross South Australia, it’s just one worker and two volunteers.
Local context: Adelaide has a population of 1.4 million across numerous suburbs and rural communities. Industries include healthcare, manufacturing and wine.
Goals:
1. Increase people’s general climate knowledge.
2. Increase people’s confidence in talking about climate change.
3. Increase community members’ awareness of what councils are doing locally.
4. Spark action by these community members.
Process: A series of linked training sessions for community members interested in climate change and wanting to take local action. The project helps bring that group to a shared understanding of climate change, and helps facilitate them to take actions within their own lives at their own pace.
Insights: We start off with an intro to climate change. We don’t go into any debate about why it’s happening, we don’t want to get distracted. Then we move into how to communicate climate change to others, which includes listening to what people’s thoughts and feelings really are. We talk about connecting to peoples’ values, and how to work that into conversations. We get them to plan and design a community action programme. We use lots of good, positive examples of effective solutions; some from Project Drawdown and some from around Australia. We show this can be done, and this builds enthusiasm in the room for taking action.
Resources: Climate Ready Communities: a guide to getting started
This is a case study from the Community Climate Coaches (CCC) Erasmus+ project, where we highlight the work of one Coach. Find out more about this type of coaching, how to become one and resources for this journey here.
CCC is co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme. Proj. ref.: 2020-1-IE01-KA204-066023
