Malvern Green Space
Malvern Green Space is a new group with plans to open a Climate Emergency Centre for the local community. Here they tell us more about what they hope to achieve and how you can get involved.
In the run up to the COP26 Climate Change Conference and in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, communities across the UK are coming together to establish ‘inspirational community hubs for the benefit of people and planet’, otherwise known as Climate Emergency Centres (CECs). These centres are springing up in empty buildings across the UK with TEN already up and running and more than 20 in the pipeline including Malvern Green Space.
Malvern Green Space (CEC) was launched earlier this year by a team of volunteers from a range of backgrounds who share a passion for climate and community. Our aim is for Malvern to reach net-zero as a happier, healthier, and more equitable community.
Malvern Green Space focuses on solutions, it’s for people and planet. It is local and inclusive, to meet community needs and is an active part of a wider network, for mutual support and cooperation.
While we await charitable status and continue to search for premises to house our project, Malvern Green Space is working to empower and support our community to take practical steps towards tackling the climate and ecological emergency.
Our volunteers are running events in local community spaces including regular ‘Swap Shops’ which encourage people to redistribute and reuse unwanted clothes, toys, and bric-a-brac instead of throwing it away. Fruit and Veg Swaps help tackle food waste and improve the distribution of locally grown food whilst encouraging healthy eating. The popularity and success of these events prove the huge potential of cooperation and collaboration through the alternative “sharing economy”.
Once we have a building, Malvern Green Space will host a range of community services including:
- a library of things providing objects for loan that are useful occasionally but are expensive in both carbon and financial terms; for example, kitchen appliances, tools, gardening equipment, electronics, toys and games, musical instruments, and recreational equipment
- a children’s clothes library
- a bike workshop - saving old bikes from going to landfill and providing active transport opportunities for our community
- a vegetarian “waste food” café, reclaiming some of the vast quantity of food that our supermarkets throw away to produce high quality, healthy meals
- courses, talks and workshops in upcycling and mending; Permaculture & organic growing; ecology & rewilding and much more
Our vision is for Malvern Green Space to provide a focal point for local, environmental and community groups to come together to build an inclusive and supportive alliance, encouraging and enabling active participation in community life: a place where activists, experts and residents can work to improve community resilience, supporting local mitigation and adaptation to the climate emergency whilst changing all our lives for the better.