Rewilding Youth: Education for Freedom

Charlotte Dean (Director of Rewilding Youth) talks about the background to Rewilding Youth as well as the excitement of putting on the inaugural Youth Environment Conference at the Green Fair this year on 5th October at Hull Minster

Rewilding Youth is a Community Interest Company working in Kingston Upon Hull and the East Riding of Yorkshire, whose mission is to facilitate transformative nature connection activities, wild adventures, wild therapy and local environmental activism opportunities for young people living in disadvantaged urban communities

This disconnect is clearly evident in Hull where there are many areas of widespread socio-economic deprivation, often compounded by a lack of access to outdoor space. Hull is also one of the least wooded spaces in the UK. Together, the East Riding of Yorkshire and Kingston upon Hull area has only approximately 2.6% woodland cover: significantly less than the national average of approximately 8.4% (Heywoods, 2021). Because of this, young people who live in Hull have much less opportunity to engage freely with ‘wild’ spaces such as woods, forests, ponds, lakes, beaches and grasslands. This is often due to lack of access to these spaces and also a lack of awareness of the opportunities provided by some of the wild spaces that do exist on these young people’s doorsteps. Wild outdoor spaces in Hull are often victim to fly tipping, drug-use and illicit activity and as such, can be seen as dangerous, forbidden environments that children and young people are taught to avoid from an early age and this is a perception that we aim, through our work, to dispel.

Our project engages young people in activities which will connect them with nature and the natural environment. We have a small, dedicated team of outdoor educators and youth workers who are all passionate about facilitating opportunities for young people to get outside and connect with the natural world around them. We do this through running outdoor activities, workshops, programmes and projects which interweave youth work, bushcraft, conservation, tree-planting, earth building, green woodwork, traditional ‘natural’ crafts and environmental action all serving to connect young people with the local ‘wild’ landscapes/wildscapes.

We do not negate the benefits of taking young people out of Hull to experience other landscapes such as the Lake District, Peak District and the wilds of Scotland but we are primarily committed to creating the opportunities for young people to connect to the pockets and spaces of nature around them rather than to feel that they have to travel to experience nature connection. It is this feeling of connection, to be a part of their own urban ‘wildscapes’, that we feel really can effect change in the attitude, behaviours and motivation of young people to be an active part of the decision making and positive action needed to improve and preserve the natural spaces surrounding where they live and ultimately the world around them.

Earlier this year we were awarded funding for 5 years through the National Lottery Climate Action Fund and one of our aims was to create a space to celebrate and come together to share some of the fantastic work that projects like ourselves and many others in Hull and the East Riding are doing to connect young people to this beautiful world around them.

We had previously attended the annual Hull and East Yorkshire Friends of the Earth Green Fair at Cottingham Civic Hall and were excited to hear that this years fair was going to be held at Hull Minster. Having recently been awarded some funding through the national Friends of the Earth Postcode Gardener Programme, this seemed like the perfect time to set up our first Youth Environment Conference to promote and share the city’s youth environmental work to a wider audience and it made sense to link in with the already well established and respected Green Fair.

The aim for the conference was to invite people to explore and discuss issues around how young people and communities in Hull can engage with their local environment, whether that be through getting involved in local projects, learning about climate change and its effects or through spending more time in the outdoor spaces around them.

As part of the Youth Environment Conference, which took place in and around a huge marquee on Trinity Square, we had speakers from the University of Hull, the University of York, Yorkshire Wildlife Trust, the Postcode Gardener projects in Bransholme and Orchard Park, Child Dynamix, the Friends of Alderman Kneeshaw Park and our very own youth researchers who will presented their research on the impact of immersive Wild Camps on young people’s environmental agency, wellbeing and nature connectedness. 

There were workshops on flint knapping, willow weaving, fire lighting and other bushcraft activities, green woodwork, wildflower seed bombing, micro pond-dipping, natural crafts and earth-building and we had a space for invited speakers from local universities and environmental organisations to present talks and workshops on areas linked to the benefits, challenges and opportunities of involving young people and communities in environmental education projects.

The intention of the event was to continue to create and nourish a community of practice in Hull and beyond who will continue to work together to develop skills, ideas and voices through which to celebrate, support and nurture young people’s engagement with nature and the environment in Hull and beyond!