Tell us about yourself and your role
I’m a Human Sciences graduate with an interest in wildlife and conservation and a passion for standing up for people in our community who are most affected by inequality and the effects on climate change. My travels in Colombia showed me how communities can form strong structures to help each other, and I was curious how I could bring this approach back to England.
My role at Sussex Wildlife trust is broadly to build relationships with our communities and identify barriers to nature, and how we can make our spaces more accessible to more people. I have a focus on our Deneway nature reserve in Brighton – engaging with a variety of groups and running sessions with them at The Deneway to develop the reserve as a community space.
Talk me through a typical working week in your role as Trainee Community Engagement Officer
My role is super-varied and is flexible enough to be moulded by my passions and interests. The projects I work on range from community sessions and relationship building, practical conservation and land management, to data collection and GIS. Depending on the week and season, it can be around 50% outdoors, and 50% office based.
As part of my traineeship, I undertake training on how to use a chainsaw, and how to be a ‘Forest School’ leader– which can involve bushcraft and nature connection activities. A typical week could involve learning from lots of different teams including the Rangers or the Youth Action Team and getting involved with community activities, such as making fires, planting flowers, bug identification and pond dipping.
I’m lucky enough to be able to help people develop their confidence and comfortability in natural spaces.
What’s been the most rewarding thing you’ve done with work so far?
I co-led a community session with unaccompanied asylum seeker children – we made nettle soup over the fire and ate crumpets. Hearing their reflections at the end of the session was really beautiful. It was really special to watch the joy of how they’d made friends in similar positions to themselves, as young adults having come from traumatic situations, to a foreign country where English is not their first language.
Tell us something about yourself that most people don’t know
I grew up doing circus classes and was lucky enough to do a national circus camp in London – our class performed at the Brighton Spiegeltent (a pop-up festival site)! Afterwards, I went on to teach aerial silks at university.
How would your colleagues describe you in three words?
Creative, fun, reliable!
The role is part of our Deneway’s Wild Future project and is made possible with The National Lottery Heritage Fund. Thanks to National Lottery players, we have been able to fund our community engagement and habitat improvement work at the urban Deneway Nature Reserve in Brighton.
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