A shining example of positive messages for sustainable living
HRH The Prince of Wales
recently visited Eco Kids in Todmorden to see the quirky way sustainable living is taught
September’s visit to Todmorden was part of HRH’s ‘Start’ initiative. The organisers teamed up with locally based businesses to demonstrate how they are helping consumers to live more sustainable lives. The Eco Kids work stations organised by Business in the Community (BITC), are a tried and tested voluntary programme which help youngsters learn in a fun and engaging way.
During the visit HRH saw a session of the very popular Eco Kids where children as young as six are creatively taught the values of recycling, renewable energy and sustainable living. The very same messages celebrated by the Prince’s Start campaign. HRH was able to see for himself the engaging nature in which youngsters learn about living sustainably and how starting to make small but effective changes can have a positive impact of the worlds in which we live.
The Prince also saw how community group ‘Incredible Edible’ is using people power to start growing fruit and vegetable in empty public spaces around the town. This initiative is heavily supported by people living in the small Calderdale town. It too is a shining example of the Start message the Prince wants to get across.
Incredible Edible aims to increase the amount of local food grown and eaten in the town. Everyone can get involved, even if don’t participate in planting and growing the food - they can eat it! The most visible signs of change are the transformation of public and green space into herb gardens, vegetable patches and orchards for use by the whole community. Wherever there is an Incredible Edible vegetable bed or fruit garden - anyone can help themselves to the produce, sharing good local food with the whole community.
This has been a low cost venture using the labour and generosity of the community to drive progress.
Projects include: • Scores of tiny pockets of unregistered land where there is now fruit and vegetables being grown by neighbours for all to share.
• Involving every school in the town in growing fruit and vegetables, including at Ferney Lee Primary - allotments for rent to parents and a new orchard
• Every egg matters - sharing the produce from chickens kept around the town • Outside space at the new health centre is now a fruit and vegetable garden • A community orchard of old English varieties of apples and pears around the football pitch
Delivering the following benefits: • Connecting people through shared growing, picking and eating of food • Questions way people think about public space and who is responsible for it • Local businesses are responding to desire for more local food, stimulating the local economy • A bottom up approach to tackling wider issues of climate change which is truly inclusive • Breaks down barriers between people - different classes, cultures and ages • Encourages joined up thinking and strong, local leadership
START (
www.startuk.org) is a national initiative by The Prince’s Charities Foundation to promote and celebrate sustainable living. HRH is touring the country, visiting community groups and examples of sustainable behaviour, as well as three national START festivals, to help show how we can all make positive changes to our lifestyles. The initiative builds on the work of the charity Business in the Community, of which HRH has been President for 25 years.
8 - WORK
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