YMCA Tayside’s Eco Ambassador programme is aimed at raising environmental awareness and promoting sustainable practices through five key local community partnerships that YMCA Tayside works with. This includes working with communities in Perth City, North Perth and South Perth.

The primary objectives are to empower young people and local communities to engage with energy reducing practices, promote active travel, reduce, reuse and recycle waste, learn about local food growing and increase public awareness on the necessity to engage with sustainable practices.

The project lead will work with a group of 5- 10 young people throughout the year. The group will be assigned the role of Eco Ambassadors and receive training, support and guidance to be equipped and confident in their role. The project lead and ambassadors will visit the 5 communities over the year to deliver a wide range of activities and workshops that will shape the local community and increase their knowledge and confidence in this topic. The five partnerships we will be working with are: Bertha Park Community Hub, Craigie & Moncreiffe Parish Church, North Muirton Youth Project, Perth Congregational Church and Kinnoull Parish Church.  

The ambassadors will visit each partner 4 times a year and work to create seasonal and relevant activities for the groups.

Example of Key Activities:

• Energy Efficiency Audit: Eco Ambassadors will work with their local community to conduct an energy audit. This can lead to cost savings and carbon footprint reduction.
• Sustainable Practices: Ambassadors will promote eco-friendly practices within the Youth Group/Events, e.g. encouraging the use of natural light, turning off electronics when not in use, and promoting waste reduction.
• Educational Workshops: Ambassadors will organise interactive workshops on climate change, renewable energy, growing your own vegetables and sustainable living to educate young people, youth workers and community members.
• Green Initiatives: Ambassadors will facilitate initiatives like a rewilding a community garden, beach/river Clean up, tree planting, or a "Clothes swap shop” campaign.
• Youth Led Summit: Bringing our community partnerships together to celebrate the work and progress made throughout the year. Keynote speakers, Dynamic Youth Awards, Volunteer Certificates and hopefully a Keep Scotland Beautiful Award.

By creating change in the local community through our programme of events we can empower young people and community members to become champions of environmental sustainability. Communities will have confidence in their ability to create change through increased knowledge and awareness, education, tools and resources, access to relevant funding and support from YMCA Tayside to apply.

It is estimated we will work with between 100 young people over the year.

INTRODUCTION

The Pitlochry Garden Share was founded in May 2022 by 5 local residents with the aims to facilitate food growing in our community, reduce food poverty, support mental and physical health and increase biodiversity in our gardens. We are an unincorporated organisation with currently 28 members. We share private gardens to grow organic food, sharing the work, the tools and the harvest, and we donate some of the produce to the food bank. We recently established a larger community garden and have been working hard to develop it. We also hold a stall in town once a month to share any excess produce and seedlings in exchange for donations that help us cover the costs of buying seeds (we are learning how to save seeds too). We engage with the wider community in various ways: for 2 years in a row we picked apples/plums in private gardens around town to avoid food waste and we organised our first apple pressing event this year. The excess produce from the gardens is also used at  monthly community cooking events called the Open Kitchen, free to attend, where we share recipes and tips on preserving fresh produce to reduce food bills and food waste.

We collaborate with other organisations like the charities Tayside Woodland Partnership (creating a community woodland) and the Atholl Centre (food bank), and we also support the local Community Action Plan Trust by holding a stall at their events.

Our IMPACT this year

• No of Volunteers: 30

• No of volunteer hours: 1290h (garden & admin work)

• Produce grown: 650kg

• No of households we helped reduce food bills: 60

• Produce donated to the Food Bank: 70kg

PLANS FOR 2024

We have been developing the community garden and our plans for 2024 include the following three elements which we are seeking funding for:

• Part One – Build a 4m x 10m polytunnel to extend the growing season; build a 3m x 6m shed to store produce and provide a shelter for volunteers; build a rain catching system using IBC tanks and pump to create a steady water supply for the garden.

• Part Two – Create a child friendly area in the garden so parents can bring their children to learn about where their food comes from and grow their own vegetables. 

• Part Three – Developing a fruit tree nursery to bring on fruit trees and bushes for future planting in the community garden. This will be used to share learning about grafting and other tree growing techniques. This will also create a free/or by donation supply for the wider community.

Supporting the project is a local Arboriculturalist, Woodland Ecologist & Horticulturist, an Ecologist & Master Shed Builder, and a Garden Manager. More information and photos available on our facebook page https://www.facebook.com/pitlochrygardenshare