Tag Archive: wellbeing_in_nature

1. ‘Awards for All’ Volunteers create homes for garden wildlife

   16th August 2021 11:46 am Comments Off on ‘Awards for All’ Volunteers create homes for garden wildlife

   Awards for All Volunteers take local environmental action by creating wildlife habitats for birds, bats, hedgehogs and pollinating insects in the EVI garden …

   The next stage of our Big Lottery Community Fund Awards for All project was to create wildlife habitat, to help attract nesting birds and bats to the EVI garden and create homes for hedgehogs.

   Everyone had a task and were challenged to use tools and techniques that had not been used before.

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   Supporting our garden wildlife

   Awards for All Volunteers from Llamau, ACT Training, Barod Gwent N-Gage and Cyfannol Women’s Aid, have created several bird and bat boxes to help attract nesting birds and bats to the EVI garden.
   Visit Gwent Wildlife Trust for more ways you can get involved locally and support garden wildlife.

   We also have a hedgehog home that will be relocated where it is most needed. If you find a hedgehog out in the day or injured, please visit hedgehoghelplinecymru.org.uk for information and advice on what to do next.

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   Spreading the Seeds…

   Some of our younger volunteers made seed bombs and had great fun spreading them throughout the garden. We also relocated our pollinator bee and bug hotel and talked about how over a third of our food depends on pollinating insects.

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   Wellbeing in Nature …

   Volunteers also created colourful images and words to remind people to spend more time in nature and how we can increase our wellbeing when spending time outdoors – over 18 posts were painted.

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   Keeping up the great work

   ‘Awards for All’ Volunteers will continue taking care of the EVI garden throughout the seasons and utilise the wellbeing space for learning, meetings and activities.

   Organisations based at EVI, (Llamau, ACT Training, Cyfannol, Barod and BGCBC Youth Services) will also undertake further environmental and wellbeing projects in the EVI garden.

   Special thanks

   Thanks to Sam Holt, Eggseeds for leading the environmental workshops, MallowArt for the painting workshop and Promo Cymru (the charity that runs EVI) for providing the ‘graphic design with canva’ and ‘Film making on your mobile’ online workshops to support the volunteers in increasing their skills in digital communications.

   A special thank you to all our volunteers for creating a wellbeing space at the EVI garden. Everyone worked together with staff and clients from other organisations, with children and families; many new skills were learned along the way and so much has been accomplished to support our local wildlife.
   

   

2. Awards for All Environmental Project at EVI

   8th June 2021 11:54 am Comments Off on Awards for All Environmental Project at EVI

   Thanks to The National Lottery Community Fund – Awards for All, ProMo Cymru will be delivering environmental activities in our new EVI garden, with volunteers learning new skills and raising awareness of how we can all take LOCAL environmental action and increase our wellbeing in Nature

   The EVI (Ebbw Vale Institute) is a community hub offering support, learning and cultural activities to young people and families, with a cafe, venue and conference/training facility, cinema quality screen and exhibition facilities available to the community.

   We are working on this exciting project with the organisations based at EVI, Llamau, Cyfannol Women’s Aid, Blaenau Gwent CBC Youth Services, ACT Training and Barod Gwent N-Gage.

   To start the project, Llamau, Learning 4 Life volunteers held a focus group, discussing different ways we can all take local environmental action and increase our wellbeing in nature. Volunteers suggested planting bee friendly flowers, fruit, vegetables, herbs and installing a water capture barrel in the EVI garden. Other suggestions included joining the BGCBC Litter Champion scheme and making wildlife habitat such as bird boxes, hedgehog homes and bug hotels for pollinating insects. A mood board was created to help present their ideas.

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   During the focus group, volunteers discussed how we can increase our wellbeing in nature and what they would like to see in the EVI garden. Some of their wellbeing ideas included tending to plants, listening to the birds, meeting and learning outdoors, getting vitamin D and time for reflection and sitting quietly.

   
   
   The learners engaged really well in the focus group session and wanted to continue the mood board and the discussion into the following week. The moodboard activity really focussed one of our harder to engage learners, and the whole group are excited about being able to create a space outside that will help them improve their moods

   Laura Wheeler, LLamau Learning 4 Life Tutor

   Llamau volunteers also came up with many wellbeing words that could be displayed as a mural on the garden wall, and a fantastic idea to display QR code linking to nature videos, sounds and relaxation music to help remind everyone to spend more time in nature.

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   In response to the ideas generated by the volunteers, ProMo Cymru will tailor environmental workshops to support ways we can all take local environmental action and increase our wellbeing in nature. We will also deliver digital communication training to help support the volunteers in their work.

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