Climate Change Education Talk at Abbey Gardens in Stratford

Towards the end of 2022 ClimateYouChange founder, Celia met Monika during the Beckton Parks Masterplan Co-Design.

Monika contacted us in April of this year to see if we could give a talk on climate change at the Abbey Gardens in Stratford, as part of their World Bee Day celebration. She thought that the event would “be a great opportunity for people to find out more about climate change”.

On their website, the Abbey Gardens is described as ‘a unique open-access community garden on the site of a 12th Century Abbey’.

They pride themselves on their inclusive style of community food growing. They don’t assign individual allotments, instead preferring to grow food together with harvests shared between members.

The gardens are sustainably grown and maintained, with wildflowers and herbs for pollinators and beneficial insects, alongside the food crops. A weekly drop-in gardening session teaches food growing, composting, harvesting, foraging and plant identification.

It therefore seemed like a natural fit for us to give a talk at the Abbey Gardens, given that our values align with theirs. We would have a receptive and willing audience!

We were advised to limit anything too scary when explaining the climate crisis, owing to this being a family event. The trustees requested more emphasis be laid on solutions-orientated messaging, to engender a sense of hope.

Time was spent accordingly, preparing a specially tailored talk, to meet the expectations of the event organisers whilst framing anything more alarming in such a way as to create a sense of urgency without inducing fear.

Our central message was one of why it is that we must step up and the power that we have to make a difference, with plenty of information on solutions and suggestions.

ClimateYouChange members, Trevor and Celia were at the event, representing the group.

The talk proved to be fruitful with a large number of attendees there on the day, sitting and standing in a big circle to hear our talk outside in the beautiful garden. (The weather held.)

We made a point of including an interactive element to truly engage our audience and give people a sense of agency. (It became a little competitive at one point, albeit in a community-spirited way.)

Our talk sparked a lot of animated conversation, which extended till after the presentation, with positive engagement from the workshop attendees.

Thank you to Monika and the trustees of Abbey Gardens for the invite to visit their fantastic community growing project to present at their event. We were grateful for all the promotion they did across their various channels, securing a big audience for the talk!