Skip to main content

How Can Communities Lead Climate Action? Panel discussion

Festival of the Future City

Watershed  |  Free

Share this

Representatives of six Bristol communities discuss their work in developing climate action plans.

Bristol’s community organisations and artists are pioneering bold and equitable community-led climate action in Bristol. They share insights on how to engage diverse communities about the urgency of the climate emergency at a local level.

Throughout 2021, six community organisations representing Bristol’s most diverse and disadvantaged communities, have set about co-producing their own community climate action plans as part of the lottery-funded Bristol Community Climate Action project. The plans developed will identify key priorities to help deliver Bristol’s 2030 net zero ambition, whilst simultaneously improving the quality of life for local residents in the civic recovery from the Covid pandemic.

This session will include a series of short presentations from six of Bristol’s leading community organisations, followed by an audience Q&A and interspersed with invitations from community artists to sample climate craftivism and watch co-produced climate-themed memes.

Speakers include:

  • Thomas Dixon, ACH
  • Karen Edkins, Lockleaze Community Trust
  • Emily Fifield, Eastside Community Trust
  • Emma Geen, Bristol Disability Equalities Forum
  • Kirsty Hammond, Heart of BS13
  • Amy Harrison, Bristol Green Capital Partnership
  • Dee Moxon, Community Artist
  • Donna Sealey, Ambition Lawrence Weston
  • Abiir Shirdoon, Eastside Community Trust
  • Morgan Tipping, Socially Engaged Artist

Find out more about the Bristol Community Climate Action Project here.

This event is part of an afternoon celebrating community leadership and exploring the theme of a ‘Just Transition’ in collaboration with Bristol Green Capital Partnership and Ujima Radio.

Listen to the recording on SoundCloud

In association with

Supported by

Thomas Dixon

Thomas Dixon is ACH’s Research and Project Lead. His work primarily focuses on the design and delivery of innovative projects, developed to test innovative methodologies to support integration. He has worked with refugees and vulnerable migrants since 2011, with several years experience in client facing, frontline support roles. This first-hand experience of mainstream integration services, and their inherent limitations and bias, led to him moving into his current role. Recent areas of work include developing a person-centred Integration Toolkit, and designing a Life Before Language learning methodology to challenge the focus on learning English being the cornerstone of integration. He is currently developing a new model of support and integration, based on Critical Time Intervention, working in partnership with Crisis.

 

Karen Edkins

Karen Edkins is a professional photographer and photojournalist with 30 years’ experience working in press, advertising, West Midlands Police – PR, and for ‘Small World Stories’, working with NGO’s and the United Nations in Nepal and Vanuatu. She has been Community Engagement Worker at Lockleaze Neighbourhood Trust for over three years, leading the Community Climate Action Project. She is a Lockleaze resident and is passionate about us all having a clean, healthy environment to live in. She sees a real need to tackle the inequalities in our communities and is a keen nature lover.

Emily Fifield

Emily Fifield is Community Project Manager at Eastside Community Trust. She has been part of the team since joining Up Our Street in 2016 as the business development coordinator. Prior to moving to Bristol, she ran a sustainable fashion business working alongside women artisans in Arequipa, Peru, and completed an MBA in Global Social Sustainable Enterprise. She is a resident of Easton and passionate about finding ways of doing things that create connections between people and ideas, and build local ownership and strong, healthy communities.

Emma Geen

Emma Geen is Projects’ Coordinator and Community Climate Action lead for the Bristol Disability Equality Forum and an associate lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Bristol. In her free time she is an activist for Extinction Rebellion and Our Air, Our City.

Kirsty Hammond

Kirsty Hammond joined Heart of BS13 in 2017. In her current role as Climate Action Development Practitioner she works across the BS13 community to support the production of a Community Climate Action Plan. She works with young people, supporting volunteers and community participants to build skills and confidence as they start their climate action journey. She has worked in the community for over 13 years in various development roles and is passionate about supporting people to reach their full potential by ensuring there are equal opportunities for them to access services.

Amy Harrison

Amy Harrison is Bristol Green Capital Partnership’s Community Manager, coordinating the Bristol Community Climate Action project. She has a BSc in Environmental Science and is a qualified teacher. She has over 15 years’ experience of developing and delivering engaging learning and participatory programmes with communities, young people, schools and families in the cultural, placemaking, sustainability, STEM and heritage sectors. She is also a Vice Chair of Eastside Community Trust and Director of Our Place (Bristol) CIC.

Dee Moxon

Dee Moxon is activating craftivist activity with a focus on climate as part of her creative commission with Bristol Green Capital Partnership. She has a background in both environmental activism mingled with street performance, carnival arts and giant puppetry.

Image credit: Paul Blakemore
Donna Sealey

Donna Sealey is the lead for community development and engagement at Ambition Lawrence Weston. She joined the team full time four years ago after spending 15 years working in Public Health and for the Local Authority. She has a passion for regeneration to ensure that everyone can reach their full potential and live life to their fullest. She was instrumental in setting up Ambition Lawrence Weston back in 2013 whilst being seconded from Public Health one day a week.

Abiir Shirdoon

Abiir Shirdoon was the lead engagement worker for Eastside Community Trust’s Community Climate Action co-production process. She joined Eastside in 2019 as a community researcher after volunteering in the local area, and also works for the organisation as a play worker at Felix Road Adventure Playground. She is committed to making the neighbourhood greener and more child-friendly and ensuring a better future for generations to come. She is a trained cycle instructor and passionate advocate for making cycling more accessible to people, especially in the Somali community. She has helped develop Eastside Community Trust’s family cycle loan scheme, and is involved in a range of campaigns and programmes around cycling and active travel at a local and national level.

Image credit: Jonathan Bewley
Morgan Tipping and Tommy Chavennes

Morgan Tipping is a commissioned artist for the Bristol Community Climate Action Project. She employs collaboration and co-creation as well as empathy, humour and improvisation to create films, audio, spaces, experiences, exhibitions and events that explore and challenge power structures and marginalisation.

Booking Information

Ticket booking is via Eventbrite. Please review Eventbrite’s terms and conditions and Privacy Policy as Bristol Ideas do not accept any responsibility or liability for the policies. You can read Bristol Ideas’ Privacy policy here.

Please note we only refund tickets if the event is cancelled. Events start punctually and, out of consideration to other audience members and speakers, our policy is not to admit or issue refunds to latecomers. Full Terms and Conditions here.

Booking opens on 4 October.

Booking is managed by Watershed’s Box Office. Book online or call 0117 927 5100.

Events start punctually and, out of consideration to other audience members and speakers, our policy is not to admit latecomers. 

Keeping Everyone Safe

Watershed wants to ensure that it is a welcoming and inclusive place for all. Please note that:

  • You are required to wear a mask when moving around the building, and when seated in either the cinemas or Waterside spaces (unless exempt).
  • The capacity of the cinemas and event spaces is at 75%, ensuring there is a minimum of 1 seat between you and other customers on your row.
  • You should not visit you’re feeling unwell and have COVID symptoms.
  • Watershed will continue with measures currently in place, including increased and enhanced cleaning regime, provision of hand sanitiser throughout the building, maintaining air flow management plans to ensure adequate ventilation throughout, staff wearing face coverings, perspex screens at the desks and bar, and keeping contactless payments. If you would like to check in via NHS Test and Trace please feel free to do so, although it will no longer be required to enter the building.

Accessibility

  • Watershed’s main entrance and Box Office are both on the ground floor which is accessible via a ramped, electronically assisted entrance door.
  • There are two Blue Badge parking spaces to the rear of Watershed on Canons Road.
  • Guide dogs and hearing dogs are very welcome.
  • The first floor of Watershed is accessible via lift from the main entrance and includes level access to all areas, including the cinemas and event spaces.
  • The cinemas and event spaces have induction loops.
  • There is an accessible toilet (with baby changing facilities) near Cinema 1. Follow the signs for the Cinemas and the accessible toilet is just on your left through the double doors before Cinema 1.
  • There are gender neutral toilets in the cinema corridor on the first floor.

Visit Watershed’s Access page for more information.

Festival of the Future City

Festival of the Future City takes place every two years in Bristol. This year – due to the pandemic – the festival brings together live on-stage, live online and pre-recorded events. Check the project page for details and follow #FutureCity21 on Twitter.

Image credit: Evoke Pictures

Your web browser is out of date. Update your browser for more security, speed and the best experience on this site.

Find out how to update