The charity is most known for its Caribbean Carnival, which has brightened the streets of Derby every July since 1975. DWICA was also instrumental in setting up various sports teams, providing educational support through its Summer School, which has run since the 1980s and more recently as an advice centre for Windrush scandal victims.
Despite many from the Windrush generation coming from agricultural backgrounds in their home country and the Caribbean being home to an incredibly diverse ecosystem, DWICA have never done any work with nature and the environment.
This has all changed this year following the launch of their BBC Children in Need funded Youth-led Social Action Project. In a sign of the changing attitude in the younger generation, they ditched the social issues of the day and chose a project centred on the environmental crisis and engaging with nature.
For the Youth Worker in charge of the project, Hollie White, this was a welcome change:
“Quite a few of the young people we work with don’t have gardens or access to green space on a weekly basis. It’s hard to access if you are a family without a car and can get expensive if travelling on public transport when you have a lot of kids,” Hollie said, “that’s a shame as I know the benefits of being around nature. I’m a trained therapist so I have learnt how uplifting being around nature can be for mental health.”
Hollie, who has been the Children and Young People’s Officer for two years has already seen a change in her cohort, “they love connecting with the natural environment and it helps me out as they are all calmer and the behaviour is much better.”
Part of the project involves the young people managing a plot on the Normanton Park Allotment site which they are in the process of re-designing.
“They’ve (the children) been designing what they want the plot to look like and deciding what produce they’d like to grow,” Hollie said, “they also wanted to make a home for wildlife, so they’ve designed a wild area on the allotment too.”
Hollie has high hopes for the allotment, inspired by other groups which use the Normanton site like Disability Direct’s Plot2Plate and the community allotment charity, Green Thyme who have run sessions for DWICA this year.
Derbyshire Wildlife Trust are also supporting DWICA’s project, putting on a session which discussed what environmental social action looked like. Over the summer, the Trust has given more opportunities for the group to engage with nature at our reserves. This type of support for local city groups has come from our Nextdoor Nature initiative (find out more about it here) and the Trust is committed to guiding smaller groups on their ‘green’ journeys.
Although a change from the norm for DWICA, Hollie recognises the great benefits projects like these can bring.
“The social action project and allotment will be a great outlet for the young people,” she said, “a lot of them feel quite helpless, especially around big issues like climate change but this project helps them feel like they have a voice and some power to make some positive changes in this world.”
Inspired by the project and want to get involved? Contact us for Volunteer opportunities.
