1000 Better Stories

In today’s episode we continue our story on ins and outs of creating a Community Climate Action Plan, based on Keep Scotland Beautiful’s work over the last couple of years. Kaska chats to the most recent participant in KSB’s community planning project, a community of Camelon and Tamfourhill, near Falkirk. We hear from John Hosie, Community Safety Engager who brought together the core planning grou...

Community Climate Action Plans (CCAPs) - what are they, how does one go about making a good one and is it worth the hassle? To answer these questions over the next couple of episodes, we talk about Keep Scotland Beautiful’s work with communities to help them with such planning. We get an overview of the project from the KSB’s Heather Ashworth, and follow with in-depth conversations with two, very...

We cross over from our 1000 Better Stories Blog today as Joana Avi-Lorie interviews another one of our mini-grant recipients, Jo Gilbert. Jo is a spoken word artist and writer from Aberdeen, who writes in Doric and English. They talk about their journey into poetry, class, challenges in connecting to nature, and the importance of diversity of voices in conversations about climate action. This is a...

Hazel Darwin Clements, the project co-ordinator at Porty Community Energy, shares an honest look at what communities can do to share cars and bikes. She has helped start a peer-to-peer car share club and run an eCargo cycle library trial this year with the mission to help people reduce their car use and make local travel more pleasant. We hear from representatives of CoMoUk and HiyaCar as well as...

In this episode we cross over to our 1000 Better Stories blog, and SCCAN Story Weaver Joana Avi-Lorie shares two of her favourite contributions from last year.  You will hear: A trio of poems Nem, Talam, Muir (Air, Earth, Water) read by their author, Erin Rizzato Devlin, followed by a conversation with her sister and collaborator Emir Elisa Rizzato on the philosophy behind their work together as C...

In our last episode this year, we hear about the success story of Neighbourocracy movement in India, its promise for community driven action on climate and its current expansion into Europe. Tim Daly recorded a conversation with Joseph Rathinam, Director of International Networking and Development for the Neighbourocracy Network, during his visit to Scotland at the end of September. They introduce...

Our guest host, Katie Revell, invites you to hear a sample of stories from the Soil and Soul project . The stories explore the importance of soil as a precious and threatened living resource for growing our food and how local community groups in Glasgow have worked to connect to and care for their soils. Soil and Soul was a collaboration between the British Society of Soil Science , a Glasgow-base...

In today’s episode you will hear Kaska Hempel’s interview with Gill Davies, a Manager of SCCAN’s Investing in Regional Networks Programme, which has been funded by the Scottish Government. For about a year now, she’s been recruiting and supporting regional network coordinators, working to strengthen relationships among community organisations within Scottish regions. This work will feed into the r...

In today’s episode SCCAN Story Weaver, Kaska Hempel, talks to managers of Climate Action Hub pilots funded by the Scottish Government. Alison Stuart is the manager of North East Scotland Climate Action Network (NESCAN) and Joan Lawrie, the Project Manager for North Highlands and Island Climate Hub and the development manager in Thurso Community Trust. The hub pilots have been in place for around 2...

In today’s episode Kaska Hempel, SCCAN Story Weaver, speaks to Alette Willis, one of the researchers involved in the Shifting The Narrative project funded by the British Academy, and carried out by researchers at the University of Edinburgh, with SCCAN as a partner. The project investigated how traditional storytelling can help communities achieve place-based climate action. Alette shares her wide...

Our Story Weaver, Kaska Hempel, talks to Karen Ridgewell about year one of Scottish Climate Action Town project, delivered by Architecture and Design Scotland ( https://www.ads.org.uk/ )  and funded by the Scottish Government. Karen shares lessons and tools for empowering communities to plan for their own climate friendly and fair future. Production and editing: Kaska Hempel Resources Climate Acti...

In this episode we focus on helping children process their climate anxiety in a holistic approach using stories. One of our mini-grant recipients, Maria Barros, invites us on an immersive and interactive journey with Nefelibatas (Cloud Walkers), and SCCAN Story Weavers Kaska Hempel and Joana Avi-Lorie chat about Joana’s research and practice in using such stories to help children tackle anxiety. M...

Have you ever tried to get your head around climate models? And what they show may happen in the next 50 to 100 years to the places you where you live, places which you love and care about? What would it really mean for you or your children? Today we bring you a story behind an Outer Hebrides Storylines project aimed at exactly that. Combining creativity, oral history, and science to help local pe...

Join Luke Winter, one of our mini-grant recipents on his adventure to Knoydart. Stories of the land and how it has changed hands in recent history.  Grants are available to anyone wanting to contribute content to the 1000 Better stories podcast or blog so please get in touch with Kaska or Joana on stories@scottishcommunitiescan.org.uk . Producer: Loris S. Sarid ( https://lorisssarid.bandcamp.com/...

In this episode we continue a conversation about how community organisations involved in climate justice work can benefit from collaborating with creative practitioners.  We hear from another partnership within Creative Dundee’s CULTIVATE project - Joyce Reid from Transition Dundee and their creative partner - Jade Anderson . Their collaboration focused on a community wardrobe project and destigma...

In this episode we start a conversation about how community organisations can benefit from collaborating with creative practitioners. We talk to Claire Durfour, Climate Creative Producer for Creative Dundee , about their CULTIVATE project which has been partnering creative practitioners with Tayside community organisations working in climate justice. We also chat to members of one of the partnersh...

Today’s storytellers, Mary Troup and Hazel Darwin-Clements, share personal reflections on how they were inspired to act on climate with their local communities. And on the often random, unplanned, messy and sometimes personally exhausting nature of what we all are trying to do. They both make a powerful case for working together with others so that we can spread our burdens, and so that we can kee...

The episode starts with a recording of a story “From fossil fuels shirt-and-tie to fossil-free hippie guy” shared by Bruce Donald, a net zero researcher for Thurso Development Trust. He was one of the participants in Paul Bristow’s January workshop on finding, writing and telling our climate action stories to better engage others in our communities.  It's followed by Phillip Revell’s uplifting sto...

Now that it's all over, Kaska Hempel talks to SCCAN members about their participation in COP26, their most memorable moments and thoughts on what it all means for community climate action in Scotland. Our guests included: Joana Avi-Lore, SCCAN Events and Story Weaver Philip Revell, SCCAN Convenor and member of Sustaining Dunbar Cornell Hanxomphou from CEMVO Scotland, Ethnic Minorities Environmenta...

In August we published a collection of Scottish podcasts with focus on climate justice and action . This magazine episode is a companion to that blog, and it is showcasing 3 of the included shows. We hear from Col Gordon about his Landed series with Farmerama radio (co-produced with Katie Revell), Catriona Spaven-Donn about United Nations House Scotland podcast - Connecting Women's Voices on Clima...

In today’s episode we have two stories in store for you. A brief update from Alex MacKenzie about Glasgow’s Lost Woods project and a conversation with Calum Macleod from Community Land Scotland about the Community landowners and the climate emergency report . Lost Woods Project: https://www.thelostwoods.earth/about Community Land Scotland: https://www.communitylandscotland.org.uk/ Community landow...

Climate Cafés are open, inclusive spaces for people to get together to talk and act on the climate emergency. Community-led, the movement has emerged from the heart of Scotland and there are now sister cafés around the world. In this episode, and following the recent launch of the Climate cafe website , we chat to Jess Pepper (Dunkeld and Birnam), Alison Stuart (Aberdeen Climate Action), Carol Ait...

Better Bike Share: Stories of Scotland’s community bike share schemes CoMoUK and Scottish Communities Climate Action Network are excited to present a new joint podcast, exploring the impact of community bike share across Scotland. It features: - Harriet Cross on CoMoUK’s work to help develop low-carbon and low-cost transport options - Tim Hughes on how his passion for cycling led to Dunblane Devel...

As we emerge from our hibernation, we reflect on the challenges the last year has presented for social isolation, and hear about social enterprises who are 'Collaborating in Communities to Improve Mental Health' with the support of the Pockets and Prospects fund. And we have two stories of personal climate action from our recent storytelling training day.

A conversation with Ross Ahlfeld of Inverclyde Community Development Trust, discussing the development of the community pantry the organisation is running in partnership with Inverclyde Council. In 3 months, 400 members have signed up for the new service which addresses food insecurity and food waste.