Sherwood Rainbows campaign for clean air
Rainbows make a difference while earning their take action skills builder
As part of Girlguiding’s environmental plan, we’re working together to become more sustainable.
We know that girls are worried about the future of our planet and are passionate about finding ways to tackle climate change. Claire, a Rainbow leader in the Midlands, saw this firsthand when her Rainbow unit completed their take action skills builder. She told us all about it in her blog below.
'Sherwood Rainbows is a lively unit of 20 girls based just outside the city of Nottingham. The Rainbows love to share what they know, and protecting the environment regularly comes up as a topic of conversation. Lots of the girls go litter picking in the local community, and I’m always being reminded to get out the recycling bin when we’re clearing away after a craft activity! When it came to planning how we could tackle the take action theme, it made perfect sense for the environment to be our focus.'
Introducing the topic
'There are some scary headlines out there around the potential effects of climate change, and the last thing I wanted to do was to frighten the Rainbows. Rather than talking about worldwide effects, such as rising sea levels and increased risk of wildfires and drought, I made sure to keep conversations age-appropriate and focus on the positive action we could take to protect the environment at a local level.
The Rainbows were concerned about pollution from vehicles in our area, so we decided as a group to take action to educate people in our community about the effects of air pollution. After more discussion, we narrowed down our focus to be around people idling their car engines when stationary. This was something that all the Rainbows could understand and had seen happen, and something they found personally quite unpleasant!'
Collecting the data
'It’s important to do the research and be well-informed when you’re campaigning for change, so the first thing we did was a traffic survey outside our meeting place – on with the high-vis and out with the clipboards!
The Rainbows loved counting the number of different vehicle types they spotted, and there were big cheers for electric vehicles. It’s always great to get out and about in the community, and we had several people stop to ask what we were doing. The Rainbows were delighted to have the opportunity to explain and were met with very positive responses.
Our data showed that although there were a few electric cars and buses, the majority of vehicles were petrol or diesel-driven, and so creating a fair amount of air pollution. To understand how we breathe and how air pollution might affect that, I made a pair of lungs from card, paper straws and little bags. The Rainbows were so impressed with this craft, they asked to make their own lungs, so that’s what we did the following week!'
Taking action
'Using the activities from the take action influence skills builder (stage 2), the Rainbows learnt what it means to influence somebody and how to spread information about causes they believe in. It was a good opportunity to gently suggest that it’s important to question why someone might want to influence somebody else. We all liked the ‘mirror me’ skills builder activity, and it’s one that I regularly refer to if I want to check that the Rainbows are listening.
We often use stories to support what we do in our meetings. The Rainbows really enjoyed Speak Up! by Nathan Bryon and Dapo Adeola, in which the main character Rocket organises a peaceful protest to save her local library. The story gave the Rainbows lots of ideas about how to influence others and how individuals can come together to make big changes.
We decided that posters and leaflets were a good way to influence people, and we looked at some resources around Clean Air Day and from campaign group Mums for Lungs for inspiration. The Rainbows made some beautiful posters encouraging people not to idle their car engines that they took home to display at home and beyond. One of our Rainbows made a sign and held her own protest outside her school!
As well as talking about how to influence, we thought about who we could influence. The Rainbows were very keen to write to the Prime Minister at the time. However, we did think the Prime Minister could be quite busy at the time with the pending general election, so we decided instead to write to our local councillor about our concerns.
Our 6 oldest Rainbows gave me their thoughts and I sent them in an email. We were surprised and delighted to get a reply from the councillor the very next day, happy to tell us about the positive things that are happening in our local area to tackle air pollution, while noting that there was more that could be done.'
What the Rainbows thought
'Did we actually change the behaviour of people when it comes to idling their car engines? Probably not. But I think out of all the topics we’ve covered with the Rainbows since we opened 5 years ago, this is the one that has really got them thinking and showed them that they can and should stand up for what they believe in.
Several of the Rainbows have continued campaigning for local changes in the area, including protesting about threatened cuts to library services. Many have joined their school council or school eco-team. They're passionate about sharing what they know and making a difference, and for me, that’s what Girlguiding is all about.'
Rainbow Ophelia, who is now on her school’s eco-team says: ‘I got voted onto the eco-team because I’m really good at helping the environment. At Rainbows, we learnt that if we don’t have clean air, it could hurt our lungs.’
Rainbow Emily adds, ‘It’s very important to look after the environment, because there is no ‘Planet B’ - I saw that on a sign once!’
Activities to do with your unit
Taking care of our planet is important to so many Girlguiding members. If you’re a volunteer who wants to explore this with your unit, we have programme activities to help girls of every section learn about the environment. Completing activities from our take action theme helps girls build the confidence, skills and knowledge needed to make a difference to the world around them.
We think Claire’s Rainbows did a fantastic job of taking the lead and making a difference. You can find out more about the ways to support girls to take the lead and make decisions in your unit on our involving girls in decisions and planning page.
Have you got an eco-guiding story you’d like to share? We’d love to hear from you. Get in touch at [email protected].