“Education for sustainability and for hope”
Awards 2021
It was in the middle of the pandemic a year ago that the Sustainable Sidmouth Champions Awards 2021 were launched.
Denise Bickely, chair of the STC’s Environment Committee, approached the Vision Group for Sidmouth with the idea of celebrating the magnificent community efforts which had been taking place during the pandemic.
And so the VGS – in partnership with the Sidmouth Plastic Warriors, Transition Town Network and Sidmouth Town Council – put together the Sustainable Sidmouth Champions Awards 2022, culminating in October with a ceremony celebrating the Award winners and? all those who had been nominated for their contributions.
As VGS Chair Peter said, “The response to the Champions Awards far exceeded our expectations, and showed the enthusiasm throughout our community for recognising the major role volunteers, businesses and organisations played during lockdown, to keep the wheels turning on so many new fronts.”
Education for Sustainability
For the Champions Awards 2022, the suggestion is to focus on ‘education for sustainability’.
This would follow on from the Champions Awards 2021 which recognised the efforts of Clare Fegan and Sidmouth Primary School, and Denise Bickley and the Sidmouth Plastic Warriors – as well as the several nominations for the Scouts.
The question, then, is: What do we mean by ‘education for sustainability’?
Last year, many of us sat through lots of zoom seminars and talks, whether from the Sid Vale Association or the Devon Wildlife Trust. Some of us were fortunate to be able to log into U3A groups, yoga classes or book club meetings online.
And in the meantime, the College and schools in the Valley managed to hold lessons – both virtually and face-to-face. The likes of the Scouts also met up as soon as it was safe to do, determined to bring young people together for some active learning.
But what about ‘education for sustainability’?
It’s been difficult through these two years to also look beyond coping with very trying circumstances – but a lot of our education and learning and online talks have looked to the future, to what kind of world we want to look forward to once the pandemic is over – and to building hope: because so much of the last two years has just left us full of fear and dread.
In particular, it has left lots of young people full of fear and dread. In which case, it is all the more important to build us all up to be more resilient, to be more hopeful and to be able to look to those things which can sustain us.
Education for hope
‘Eco-anxiety’ has become the affliction of our time. To go beyond despair, we need to give people, both young and old, a sense of hope.
And in these times of having to manage with less, we also need to give people a sense of control over their lives and confidence in themselves – the confidence that we can survive with less money and still live well.
The proposal, then, is to make the Champions Awards 2022 about the positive things people have taught and learnt – whether it’s offering or taking up opportunities to learn.
Examples might include the Town Council’s infrared camera project – to show people their house’s carbon footprint which should then hopefully lead to households learning how to reduce their impact and save money.
Other ways to learn about sustainable living in today’s world come from the Solar Punk movement – whether it’s promoting and learning about using up waste food in new meals or repurposing clothing and fabrics, taking us back to the 1940s/50s and making do and mend.
And there is the Repair Café with its ethos of helping people to fix their own things, rather than throwing stuff into landfill and spending on yet more stuff.
There are the schools and other education bodies which have been involved in all sorts of projects focussing on nature and the planet in exciting and engaging ways – from Eco-warriors getting ‘green flag’ status to Eco and Sustainable Fashion projects, from Bear Grylls endorsing ‘plastic clever’ to working with the Global Action organisation.
Teaching and learning about positive ways to cope and to build a better world need to be recognised and celebrated – and this is the proposal for the Champions Awards 2022.
Get involved
If you’re interested in helping with such a project, get in touch with the VGS at https://visionforsidmouth.org/contact/
And let’s see if we can look to building a better future – through recognising the champions for sustainability and hope in our midst.