Young Swindon people tell world leaders what their post-COP26 priorities

By Barrie Hudson - 17 November 2021

CommunityArts and Culture
  • Some of the young volunteers discussing the project

    Some of the young volunteers discussing the project

Volunteers from Swindon have helped to create three films about how global warming should be tackled

The young volunteers from Swindon Junior Street Reps have teamed up with University of Bath PhD students to release the films, which detail what they want to see in Swindon and the UK to tackle global warming.

The Junior Street Reps work with Swindon Borough Council's adult Street Reps to improve the different parts of Swindon for all who live there. 

The teams chose to create films about how everyday people in Swindon, along with businesses and Government, could make a real difference to people’s lives in Swindon and beyond. For example, by changing how we grow local fresh food, how we travel around Swindon, and by reducing plastic waste. 

The project is part of a collaboration between several local partners based in the GWR Carriage Works, as part of Swindon’s Festival of Tomorrow.

Rod Hebden, Director of New Elements, the organisation behind the Festival of Tomorrow science gathering, said: "The teams were trained and guided by media production social enterprise Create Studios and supported by the team behind the University of Bath’s Centre for Sustainable and Circular Technologies, which has opened its new innovation arm, the Innovation Centre for Applied Sustainable Technologies (iCAST), in Swindon.

“The teams of volunteers and students planned, researched and produced the films in just two days, and they pulled it off brilliantly!” 

The reps worked with PhD students from the University of Bath’s Centre for Sustainable and Circular Technologies, who helped them access the latest research, as well as giving a national perspective of the issues which the young people cared about. 

Leana, a Swindon Junior Street Rep volunteer with a passion for reconnecting people with how their food is grown, said: “Growing your own food at home really helps decrease the amount of food waste and plastic waste, so we are urging World leaders to consider providing incentives for people to grow their own food to reduce waste and improve taste. 

“It was such a great experience, getting to meet the researchers and get to look inside the labs as the University of Bath, and record interviews with inspirational people from the Olive Tree Café, Recycling Technologies and Cllr Keith Williams, SBC Cabinet Member for Climate Change.”

The three films were posted on the Festival of Tomorrow website, and across social media, at the close of the COP26 conference in Glasgow.

They can be seen at  www.festivaloftomorrow.com/COP26

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