Youth-Led Social Action Projects
Ferret Fundraiser
The Youth Committee led a fundraising campaign to build a new large ferret enclosure so we can care for ferrets on the Farm again!
They planned four events across two days in April 2023 and worked hard making ferret bunting for their fundraiser stalls, making and painting clay sculptures to sell and planning which cakes and baked goods to make. The groups made an incredible £981 during the fundraiser and in combination with generous online donations we are thrilled to say we have reached the target of £1750 collated here. A huge thank you to all of our young people and their families for making this such a success.
The new ferret housing was built in November 2023, allowing us to take on three new ferrets to live here on the Farm – Thor, Loki and Apollo. The ferrets are cared for by the young people in our core youth programme on the weekends as well as our volunteers, work experience students and adults with learning disabilities on weekdays.
The children in our programmes enjoy learning about ferrets, taking them for walks around the Farm, feeding and mucking them out, taking them to animal competitions and shows and learning about their behaviour. In addition visitors can come to the Farm every day of the week for free, to meet and observe the ferrets here.
Nature. What's the point?
One of our young people in our Greenagers youth club gained funding, planned, organised and delivered a fantastic nature event on Saturday 2nd July 2022. His event enabled Londoners to get involved making insect hotels, tasting foraged teas, learning how to help bees, and developing their green fingers!
City leaders
As part of their London Youth City Leaders project, members of the Youth Committee have launched a social action project that helps to bring people closer and develop a greater interest in the work done at Surrey Docks Farm.
In an attempt to make people more interested in the Farm, the Youth Committee are creating online content, such as farm fact files, podcasts and short videos, to teach people about the animals and work carried out at the farm. This helps to make the Farm more interactive for its visitors and teaches people about some of the animals that we care for here.
Additionally, the Youth Committee are inviting young people who have been impacted particularly hard by the pandemic to the Farm to take part in sessions that aim to provide them with a taste of what happens at the Farm and to combat stress and loneliness.
Not only is this project engaging people within the wider community with the Farm, but it is providing young people in the Youth Committee with invaluable experience in planning, working as a team, communication, problem solving and working with a budget – skills that they can use in the future.
Text by Finn (Youth Committee 2021)
Let’s Get Pollinating!
Nine Young Farmers took part in the Heritage Lottery Fund’s ‘Keeping it Wild’ project. They designed a campaign ‘Let’s Get Pollinating’ to promote the understanding and protection of pollinating insects with local and wider communities across London.
Using skills they learned at a Headliners media training day and a conservation workshop at the London Wildlife Trust’s Woodberry Wetlands they carried out their project online in Summer 2020.
Follow their campaign on social media by searching for the #LetsGetPollinating tag or read their posts on the John Muir website.
Wildflowers & Wellbeing
One of our youth volunteers and passed Youth Committee member applied and gained a microgrant from London Youth in Summer 2020 to plan, budget, promote, deliver and evaluate a community gardening project.
He showed real initiative and thought in setting up this project on his own, with guidance when needed from our Youth Manager. Read more about the project on our blog.