Funding to support community-led local development
120 not-for-profit community groups are to benefit from £1.8 million funding to trial new and innovative ways to address local challenges and embrace local opportunities.
The Rural Communities ‘Ideas into Action’ Fund opened to applications from Monday 13 September to Friday 8 October, and is part of a £3 million commitment by Scottish Government to trial new approaches to Community led local development (CLLD) before March 2022. The successful projects will test new approaches to CLLD from a broad range of themes including mental health & wellbeing, net zero and climate action ambitions and community collaboration.
The original £1.5 million fund was topped up by £300,000 of capital funding to support successful climate action specific projects, and is being delivered in partnership with Inspiring Scotland. The outputs and learning will help inform development of a future CLLD fund for 2022-23 worth £11.6 Million.
The fund is now closed for applications.
Read more about the funded projects.
Additional funding for sustainable islands
Additional funding has been allocated to local island projects.
Projects delivering strong community climate themes across some of Scotland’s islands will receive a share of almost £600,000 to support sustainability and provide more green travel options.
The projects are delivered through the Scottish Government’s Island Communities Fund, which provides investment for community-led projects that support employment, community resilience and contribute to Scotland’s just transition to net zero and climate resilient living on islands.
This second payment tranche will see funding provided to six additional projects. A second instalment of funding will also be provided to one of the projects awarded money in the first tranche.
The Fund is managed by Inspiring Scotland on behalf of the Scottish Government and the 35 successful projects span across 55 islands.
Islands Secretary Mairi Gougeon said:
“Last summer, we received more than 180 applications for this fund which shows us that our islands are focussed on making Scotland a greener and fairer place. They will play an important role in helping us meet our ambitious climate change targets.
“The additional funding will enable even more projects to help people, businesses and communities on our islands thrive.”
Magnus Holbourn of Foula Wool has received two funding instalments through the fund. Speaking about the importance of the fund to his business, he said:
“This is a genuine transformational opportunity for our island business, we have worked extremely hard over a number of years building up a customer base and establishing our Foula Wool product range. To now be able to bring all of the physical processing work that goes into creating the product back to the island, retaining its full value in the local economy is simply a dream come true.
“The fact that all of the yarn processing machines will be running on low carbon renewable electricity generated by Foula’s own off-grid network not only increases overall island resilience but also allows us to significantly lower our business carbon footprint. We are really passionate about the environment and it makes us so happy to know that we are going to be able to produce our product in a responsible way, supporting our community and our unique sheep at the same time.”
Inspiring Scotland CEO Celia Tennant said:
“Inspiring Scotland is delighted to work with the Scottish Government to deliver this increase in investment to the Island Communities Fund. Support for these seven organisations will help island communities from Foula to Arran thrive, retain and grow population, and move towards a net zero future more quickly.”
Background
The total ICF grant commitment delivered by tranche 1 and 2 is £2,586,000.
The initial £2 million committed in tranche 1 has come from the £9.5 million committed to the Islands Programme for 2021/22 and the £586,000 of additional funds is made up of £526,000 transferred from the Sustainable Action Fund, which is delivered by the Domestic Climate Change Division and £60,000 in support of population focused projects to deliver on our National Islands Plan commitment to support the repopulation of rural and island communities.
Tranche 2 funding also includes £9,536.67 that has been reallocated from Tranche 1.
Projects should be completed by 31 March 2022.
Read more about the funded projects.
Read more about the Island Communities Fund.
Creating resilient and sustainable islands.
Thrive Outdoors Blog Series: Sharing learning from the Wee Garden
This month for the fifth instalment of our Botanics Blog series we hear from Caroline Walsh an Early Years Outdoor Learning Officer at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh. Caroline shares her experience of the project so far and the key learnings along the way!
I came into this exciting research project full of ideas. I had a vision in my head which I have been lucky enough to make a reality in a very short space of time. The brilliant integrated team, working together and having the same aim, have ensured our shared vision became reality. One month after I started, the identified space was created and named ‘Our Wee Garden’.
The two nurseries involved, ONE (Outdoor Nursery Edinburgh) and Edzell Nursery, are very different. One of the nurseries come for a whole day session every Wednesday and the other comes for two, two-hour sessions two days a week. The resources are all open ended to enable free flow, child led and imaginative play.
My vision is to share good practice and instil a love of being outdoors to the children, which will,hopefullylast through their lifetime. There is a memorial bench in RBGE with a quote which I love; it says “to plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow”.
My own love of outdoors comes from my late father who took us out as a familyevery weekend whether rain, hail or shine, when the rain came, we built a shelter. As Billy Connelly says, “there is no such thing as bad weather, only the wrong clothes.”
Sometimes I create experiences for the children using subtle provocations which result in amazing moments. For example, the rangoli for Diwali (pictured above) inspired a fantastic session where all the children were engaged in collecting various coloured leaves, and creating pictures of ‘mum,’ ‘a rainbow’ and sparking conversations about colour, the season, the changes to the environment around us. The children were asked if they wanted to go out into the RBGE looking for more leaves, but everyone was so engaged in play, it was a lovely session and a utopic moment to see level 5 (Leuven scale)[i] in practice.
Finding Solutions
There have been issues along the way, but there have also been solutions. An example of this is the spa tap; a fantastic invention to save water use and wash hands where no running water is available. Under the current Covid restrictions the children wash their hands when they come to the garden and when they leave. The two nurseries have vastly different approaches to this. The issue being the site is very wet already, the ground has drainage issues, and the water is sourced from a small sink every morning. So I went on a course where I learned solutions and good practice with other practitioners .I tried it during my first session back, what had been challenging was now a simple hand washing experience. Sometimes we need to step outside and look in at our practice to find solutions.
The mud has been another learning curve; the site is very boggy and wet. But this too brings so much learning. Like when we first started using the site, there were a lot of frogs around, so the children looked for frogs and we looked at books, learning about their life cycle, sang songs five little speckled frogs which often still is requested.
The challenges have been making sure there is a dry space. At the wettest, even inside the tent was extremely muddy! But we looked to solve the problem by raising the ground using pallets.
A combination of pallets and slabs have created a pathway in Our Wee Garden and the children have been using this in their imaginative play as a train track, using the wheelbarrows back and forward on the track and the sticks at the side of the track as the levers; wonderful!
Shared Learning
I thoroughly enjoy my job and being part of this experience has been a real privilege. Each session I am getting to know the children (and them me) better and observing them and how they use the resources inspires me. To give the children ownership of the space, we created woven willow circles and linked them together to form an arch when you enter and exit Our wee Garden. The children can now independently create woven willow circles.
To avoid cross contamination and keep things simple, we have the rule ‘if you make it at Our Wee Garden then it stays at Our Wee Garden’ and you can choose where it goes. For example threading, and willow circles. Also if you find a leaf or twig outside of the RBGE you cannot bring it in to avoid cross contamination of plant biomatter. This rule is also an important learning experience for the children as they learn about how to take care of the plants in the National Collection – the main Botanical Gardens.
The staff from both nurseries have shared that they like my ideas and have purchased willow for the children to use back in their nursery and they have also taken back other ideas such as threading and shells, fabric scraps and loose parts play materials. A member of staff commented that every week she gets a new idea to try; this was lovely feedback to receive.
After a story about fairy houses the children felt inspired to create their own, some in groups and some independently, the children add to them and look for signs of fairies. Our Wee Garden does feel magical, there is a great sense of calm and much as I hoped that everyone would feel welcome and want to come play so far that has been my experience. The children engage well and have formed an attachment to the space and myself; some don’t want to leave! It is so rewarding when a child who does not usually engage chooses to do so in Our Wee Garden, where they feel safe, cared for and nurtured.
Each session by the welcome pebble, I have the day, date and month, (subtle literacy) Each child has a name pebble to find and pop in the repurposed seed box at the start of each session, The children help their friends find their name too. When the pilot finishes, I plan to give each child their name pebble to keep.
What I will take away from this experience is anything is possible; we cannot climb trees or have fires there are boundaries that you wouldn’t have in any other green space, but with the right team and a shared vision it IS possible to have an outdoor nursery in the Royal Botanic Gardens Edinburgh!
Stay tuned as we continue this blog series sharing the next part of this exciting journey on Friday the 18th of February!
Enjoy this blog? Then keep an eye for the next blog in this series where both the up’s and downs of piloting a new outdoor ELC in a botanical garden will be shared as well as the key learnings along the way!
Join in the conversation or just chat with us at:
- Facebook @ThriveOutdoorsScot
- Twitter @Thrive_Outdoors
- Instagram @thrive_outdoors
- or by email to amy@inspiringscotland.org.uk
Promoting healthy and resilient island communities
People living on Scottish islands will benefit from community-led wellness initiatives designed to support them to live healthier lifestyles as funding has now been allocated for the Scottish Government’s Healthy Islands Fund.
The Healthy Islands Fund will help to deliver these initiatives with just over £1.3 million of Scottish Government funding from the wider £30 million Islands Programme.
The fund is managed by Inspiring Scotland with 56 projects spanning across 35 islands. Projects focus on building local capacity to increase well-being, foster connections and promote healthy and resilient islanders and communities – helping them to recover from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Islands Secretary Mairi Gougeon said:
“It’s important that local communities have initiatives that can promote participation and equality in physical activity, as we’ve outlined in our National Islands Plan. We need to ensure that these are locally-led and local community groups who are often best placed to provide these services on our islands.
“The projects that we are funding will help encourage people to live healthier lifestyles and improve their resilience. I’m so grateful to the groups for applying to help improve the lives of the people living across Scotland’s islands and I can’t wait to see them in action.”
Inspiring Scotland CEO Celia Tennant said:
“Inspiring Scotland is delighted to be the delivery partner for the Scottish Government’s Healthy Islands Fund which supports the aims and outcomes of the National Islands Plan and builds on the work of the Scottish Government’s Island Communities Fund. The 56 successful Healthy Island Fund Projects delivered on 35 islands will support our island communities to engage in healthy lifestyle choices and in turn support their physical and mental wellbeing.”
Further Information
- Read more about the Healthy Islands Fund
- Read more about the funded projects