Thanks to National Lottery players, People First Merseyside has received £1,238,771.87 over five years from The National Lottery Community Fund, the largest community funder in the UK. Their new project ‘Climate Champions: It’s Our Planet Too’, will engage people with learning disabilities in better understanding climate change. It also aims to demonstrate how they can contribute to its mitigation in their everyday lives. This will involve helping them learn how to make decisions that will make an impact on their local environment and climate change as a whole.

Activities will include food growing, countering food waste, composting, increasing biodiversity, food miles, increasing plant-based consumption, rainwater harvesting, donating food, gleaning, walks & talks, and climate friendly equipment & materials. They will also cover how to improve environments that capture carbon (e.g. tree planting).

This project will take place at a regional level in Merseyside, with a view to roll out the resources produced nationally. This will be through utilising existing environmental networks and organisations, such as TCV, the Groundwork Trusts and Natural England.

This comes from the Climate Action Fund, a long-term commitment to support communities across the UK to act on climate change and involve more people in positive environmental action.