'Blue Mentors' trained in Eastbourne
A nationwide scheme aimed at engaging young people with their ‘blue’ spaces – coasts, rivers, and estuaries – has drawn on the marine expertise of Sussex Wildlife Trust.
Ten ‘Blue Mentors’, who help deliver The Blue Influencers Scheme, spent two days on the Trust’s wild beach training course at Eastbourne beach, learning skills which they can then pass on to young people.
The Blue Influencers Scheme itself was created by UK education charity The Ernest Cook Trust, to support young people living in areas of deprivation in coastal, riverine and estuary locations, by empowering them to tackle environmental and climate issues.
The £2.25 million scheme is being co-funded by The Ernest Cook Trust and the #iwill Fund, and is running for three years. Its ambition is to engage more than 4,000 young people as ‘Blue Influencers’, as well as over 15,000 community volunteers across England.
The #iwill Fund is made possible thanks to £66 million joint investment from The National Lottery Community Fund and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) to support young people to access high quality social action opportunities. The Ernest Cook Trust is acting as a match funder and awarding grants on behalf of the #iwill Fund.
Funding is allocated to local host organisations – more than 20 in England – to employ Blue Mentors, and it’s their role to engage young people as Blue Influencers.
Mike Murphy and Natasha Sharma, two of our Wilder Learning Officers, said the Blue Mentors’ training in Eastbourne was well-received, with delegates excited to take what they had learnt back to their own organisations.
“We came at this from two angles - how do you engage young people in an environment that they are not familiar with and maybe not comfortable in, and how do we introduce new people to a coastal environment that, to begin with, might not look that interesting,” said Mike.
“Our course is about inviting people to look at the marine environment in a new way and by doing so they connect with it, start to understand it and love it, and ultimately want to protect it.”
Activities included collecting and curating items on the beach, learning about and understanding tides, and ending each day with a litter pick, to help become more 'ocean connected'.
Natasha said: “The fact that they will be able to translate their experience to their blue space – in the case of rivers, they might include mudlarking – was fantastic for us.”
There are now plans for other Blue Mentors to take part in Wild Beach training, this time provided by Lancashire Wildlife Trust.
Want to get involved in Wild Beach training in Sussex? See what's coming up.