Guest Blog: Resilient Communities with Climate FORTH

In this guest blog for World Habitat Day we’re getting insights from Margaret Dickie from Climate FORTH.

Hello, my name is Margaret and I’m the Project Assistant for the Climate FORTH project. This is a training and development role for one year and is my first job after graduating from university. Throughout this past year I have developed a variety of skills which will contribute to my future career, whilst also learning a great deal about the important link between heritage and communities which forms a key part of this project. I have had a brilliant time in this role and while I am a bit sad that my year will soon be coming to an end I am delighted to say recruitment will start soon for the next Project Assistant in December. This is a great opportunity for a young person early in their career to develop skills in community engagement.

Climate FORTH (Furthering Our Resilience Through Heritage) is a three-year project to help communities around the Inner Forth transition to be more climate literate, ready and resilient places. This October 7th is World Habitat Day and part of this is about reminding us of the importance of resilient communities. Many of our activities, and our project focus, is on building resilient communities primarily by utilising heritage assets and we continue our work in this area successfully into the future.

After one year of the project, we can now share with you what we’ve been up to and what’s to come. We have several pilot activities ranging from a free Bike Bus service to aid exploration around the Inner Forth and the use of Virtual Reality to engage communities with landscape change. We have created Local Resilience Plans with four local communities. These aim to protect and enhance each community’s local heritage, with voting events then held to decide which heritage elements should be made more resilient to climate and other change.

We have our Training Platform designed for young jobseekers and young people, who can benefit from obtaining a range of ‘green’ skills and experiences from training both online and in-person. When I left school only a few years ago I had little knowledge of green jobs prospects and limited opportunities to learn and develop green skills. This training platform will help give young people this opportunity, which is especially important now as there’s a growing need for younger generations to be equipped with the knowledge and skills for the growing green jobs sector. The training consists of an online platform containing a series of modules, including “What is ‘resilience’ and how can we build it?”, “Climate impacts on local heritage”, and “Green Careers”. These modules will develop green skills and help young people build skills for life such as critical thinking, communication and problem-solving. This training is currently in development, but it will be fully launched in November. See more information on our website here.

The Climate FORTH project also includes a Young Leaders Pilot which will work with young people aged 18-25 who live, work or study across the project area to assist their community’s Local Resilience Plan. This volunteering opportunity will help young people to develop their understanding of local heritage, climate resilience and enable them to become more involved in local action for climate change initiatives.

Map of the CLIMATE FORTH boundaries

My main responsibility is in our Family Focused Outreach activity. This aims to engage with families that may be less likely to spend time outdoors or have few opportunities to engage with local heritage. I organised free sessions to explore themes around nature, history and wildlife through various activities such as forest fun and historical re-enactments. This enabled local families to recognise what’s on their doorstep and experience the benefits of spending time in nature and explore their local heritage sites. The feedback we received on the sessions was very positive, with many appreciating the opportunity to spend time outdoors.

The Climate FORTH project is run by the Inner Forth Futures (IFF) partnership which includes Sustrans, Green Action Trust, NatureScot, Falkirk, Stirling, Fife and Clackmannanshire councils and is led by the RSPB, with Historic Environment Scotland as an advisory member.

You can find out more about how to get involved with Climate FORTH here. We are funded by The National Lottery Heritage Fund with thanks to lottery players, with additional funding from the UK Government’s Shared Prosperity Fund, the Crown Estate, our IFF Partnership and the Scottish Government through Sustrans Scotland’s Network Engagement Programme.