Calling all Students and Staff of the School of Education!
Following the success of the first Climate Justice Challenge in 2022, the School of Education is running an inspiring and collective, ‘Climate Justice Challenge’, during the month of March 2023.
The challenge will help us explore how we can mobilise to make wider changes. In particular, it will help us explore 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.
If you would like to get involved, read on!
What will it involve?
We want to deepen a sense of community around the challenges we all face in responding to climate change and realising climate justice. We also want to support creative responses, leading to lasting changes at individual and system levels.
To do this, we are recruiting 40 School of Education ambassadors to join our Climate Justice Challenge in March. It is vital we have representatives from all areas of the School take part in the Challenge: students across course levels, professional services staff, estates and cleaning staff and academic staff. Ambassadors from the 2022 Challenge are welcome to join again.
In the Challenge, we will explore: What changes can we make in our own lives that respond to climate change and climate justice? What makes it easy or difficult to break habits and to create new ones? How do friends, colleagues and families react when we choose to do things differently? What connects our little change with big picture change? … and much more.
Here’s what we will do as ambassadors:
- Each of us will 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.
- We will receive training in February to prepare us for the challenge.
- We’ll share our stories and reflections during these 30 days on a Yammer page only editable by ambassadors.
- We will receive supportive and coaching messages to help us develop and reflect on our challenge.
- We’ll have access to weekly (optional) group workshops where all ambassadors are invited to come together to share progress, challenges and ideas.
- We will be encouraged to share our experiences more widely with classmates, friends, family, and our 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 and University. 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 simply email: alf.coles@bris.ac.uk with your name and role in the SoE. Please email by Friday 9 February 2023.