Calling all Students and Staff of the School of Education!

During the month of March 2022, the School of Education will be running a collective, inspiring and enjoyable 'Climate Justice Challenge: Learning from Change', supported by a team of experts in transformational change from Norway (the cChange team). The challenge will help us to explore how we mobilise to make wider changes. In particular, it will help us work on how we can act, as individuals, in teams, in our School, and in the wider University community, in ways that are consistent with the University's declaration of a climate emergency. 

All those who participate will receive training in transformation processes (useful in many other areas of life) as well as individual and group support to undertake one change action for 30 days either at work or at home, in your personal life or professional field. All participants will receive a certificate of completion and, for any staff involved, it has been confirmed your participation will be recognised by line managers.

What will it involve?

We want to build a sense of community around the challenge of addressing climate change and creating climate justice; we want to support creative responses, leading to lasting changes at individual and system levels.

We are recruiting 40 ambassadors; it is vital we have representation from students (across all portfolies) and staff (professional services and academics) to participate in the Challenge.

We're going to explore: What makes it easy or hard to break habits, or create new ones? How do friends, colleagues and families react when we choose to do things differently? What connects our little change with the big picture? How do the personal, professional and political connect? ...and much more.

Here's what we will do as ambassadors:

1. We choose one thing to change in our own life that is related to climate justice, either at work or at home and stick with it for 30 days, from 1 March – 30 March.
2. We will receive training in February from cChange to prepare us for the challenge.
3. We’ll share our stories and reflections during these 30 days on a digital platform – thinking about what we can do easily and what might need others or wider changes to help us address.
4. We will receive supportive and coaching text messages from the cCHANGE team to help us develop our challenge and the team at cCHANGE will comment on the posts we make on the platform to further support our work.
5. We’ll have access to weekly (optional) group workshops where the whole ambassadors’ group will be invited to come together to share progress and ideas.
6. We will be encouraged to share our experiences more widely with classmates, friends, family, and our wider community and to get them involved. The challenge is a great conversation starter.

Being an ambassador is a great opportunity to learn about change and transformation processes – both your own and in organisations - and to help influence policy and practice in the School. The time commitment will be up to you, as a minimum all ambassadors need to be prepared to engage in the online platform each week, as well as time on the challenge you choose. If you would like to be involved, please see the further details below and then email: alf.coles@bris.ac.uk, with your name, role in the SoE and a short paragraph on why you want to take part (100 words max). Please email by the end of Friday 28th January.

Choosing your Change Experiment

You are free to pick any change you want, as long as it is connected to climate justice. It’s important that your change experiment is achievable, and at the same time it should be a stretch – something that you are not already doing in your life. You will be supported in finding your challenge.

Here are some examples:

• - Cycle to and from work 3 days a week
• - Use public transport from Monday to Friday
• - Eat plant-based meals on weekdays
• - Spend an hour outside in nature each day
• - Pick up rubbish wherever you are
• - Go without electricity for 1 hour each day
• - Reduce your use of disposable plastics
• - Photograph or document your landfill waste each week and try to halve it
• - Spend 20 mins a day reading climate justice research
• - Raise issues of climate justice in teaching sessions /seminars /meetings each week
• - Have a conversation instead of sending an email, at least once per day

Share your story and support others

When we share stories, we influence others. We encourage you to share your experience (including the difficulties) three times a week on the digital platform, with text, pictures or videos. You’ll inspire others more than you think! Read posts from the other participants and comment on their posts. This support is very important. You’re in this together! This project uses the cCHALLENGE tool developed by Professor Karen O´Brien at the University of Oslo, Norway. If you want to learn more visit the cCHALLENGE-webpage: www.cchallenge.no