Sprout is a Nottingham-wide scheme, offering young people aged 16-25 years, the chance to run their own environmental projects. We can provide support, advice and small amounts of funding to help get young people’s projects off the ground.

The range of environmental projects we support is very wide. The project could involve converting a derelict space into a community garden, a campaign to raise awareness about the environment or an art workshop using recycled materials.

We’ll also be organising a range of environmental events and campaigns that young people can get involved with. Amongst other things we’ll be community gardening, allotment clearing and raising awareness of environmental issues.

‘Sprout’ is being run by the Partnership Council and is funded by v, the national youth volunteering charity.

The Support we can offer includes:

· We can provide advice, support and funding (up to £500) to make young people’s projects happen;
· Meeting with you and talking through the project idea;
· Helping you with planning the project;
· Helping you to recruit volunteers for the project;
· Pointing you towards other funding sources available;
· Being available to meet up and try to overcome setbacks if things start to going off track;
· Advice and guidance on writing funding applications;
· Publicity about your project;
· We will tell you about any awards that you may be abler to enter your project for
· Help to find a possible specific mentor on a subject e.g. media mogul;
· Recognition of your achievements through the V50 awards and Youth Achievement Awards.

Why Volunteer:

Volunteering is great for your community, brilliant for the environment and has a positive impact on your life as well. Environmental volunteering allows you to:

· Build your confidence;
· Meet new people;
· Have fun;
· Gain experience and skills to put on your CV;
· Gaining recognition for carrying out volunteering;
· Work towards an Accredited Youth Achievement Awards or the V50 awards for completing 50 hours of volunteering;
· Improve your skills and abilities.






If you have an idea for a project or feel there’s something that can be done in Nottingham or your local neighbourhood about the environment, this scheme will provide you with the skills, support and funding to put your ideas in to action. To provide some inspiration for environmental projects, we have listed a few ideas of the sorts of projects we can support:

· Perhaps you’d be interested in designing/making a cookery book or film about cooking with local seasonal vegetables? Maybe back this up with some bi-weekly cookery lessons on how to cook cheap and nutritious meals on a budget using local, seasonal produce using environmentally friendly tools such as pressure cookers?

· Maybe you’re interested in designing and making clothes or crafts/cards out of recycled materials. You could donate these to your favourite charity!

· Perhaps you know a lot about something relating to the environment…Do you know about growing your own food? Or energy efficiency in the home? Maybe you know about food preservation and you could teach people how to make jams and pickles? Maybe you’ve built a bicycle trailer and would like to share that knowledge with somebody else? In which case maybe you wish to organise an event to share your knowledge with others.

· Are you a young person active in your local transition Nottingham group? Do you have an idea for something you could start in your local area? Maybe you wish to organise to show some films about environmental issues in your local community centre or during a lunch break at school/college?

· Would you like to try and set-up a food co-op in your local area to help provide locally sourced foods at affordable prices for your local community?

· Maybe you’d like to make a newsletter about environmental issues facing Nottingham and the world?

· Do you feel passionate about reducing the amount of waste produced? Would you like to get some experience of working with other organisations? Perhaps you’d like to visit the schools, community centres, and other community organisations in your local area and help them perform an energy or waste audit? Maybe you could introduce composting from the school dinner scraps?

· Are you unhappy that an area near where you live that is covered in rubbish? Maybe you’d like to organise a project to get the area cleaned up whilst involving the local community?
· Maybe you’d like to volunteer in a classroom setting to teach primary school children about ‘the story of stuff’ using art as a medium?

· Maybe you’d like to organise a community festival or an event at your school/college with an environmental theme and/or run using renewable energy?

· Is there a patch of land at your School/College that isn’t being used? Maybe you’d like to turn this into an allotment plat or wildlife garden?

· Maybe you’ve got some ideas of innovative ways to promote the Nottingham Free-cycle group? We could help you with the PR and marketing side of things and help put you in touch with the local press to promote your ideas.

· Would you be interested in organising an exhibition about environmental issues? The exhibition could even tour a number of different venues to reach different audiences.
Perhaps you’d like to organise an event celebrating cycling. You could promote it in your local community, get some bike maintenance people on board to fix-up bikes, organise a community bicycle ride and give out energy efficient bicycle lights for cycle safety.

We hope that this list gives you more of an idea of the sorts of projects we could support. Remember, environmental projects don’t have to be long, drawn-out, mountain tasks. However small your idea, we’d like to hear about it. Please get in touch!

What’s more, Sprout also organise events throughout the year to give people a taste of environmental volunteering. To find out more about these events please visit www.sproutnottingham.org.uk

If you are interested in starting an environmental project or would like to know more about ‘sprout’ then get in touch:

Email:  jabran@partnershipcouncil.co.uk or  rachel@partnershipcouncil.co.uk or sproutnottingham@gmail,.com

Or Call Jabran or Rachel on

(0115-9708200) Or 07528481510

www.sproutnottingham.org.uk