Supporting people to develop new skills and improve their understanding of climate change and related issues, as well as providing much-needed social spaces post-pandemic.
Transition Dundee
Go To WebsiteAddressed Challenges:
- Health & wellbeing
- Biodiversity loss
- Food security & supply
- Carbon emissions
- Greater fairness/Just Transition
- Waste/Circular economy
- Excessive consumption
Action Areas:
Circular Economy
Initiative Purpose:
Mitigation & Adaptation
The Story
Workshops are a great way to engage with a wide variety of people. Our wide variety of workshop topics has allowed us to find the different hooks needed to bring more people into the climate discussion. We have also found there to be a wide variety of other benefits to our participants and ourselves - people learn new skills, make valuable friendships, improve their mental health, end up volunteering at another of our projects and much more!
We covered everything from Beginners/Intermediate Sewing, Upcycling/Recycling, Draught Excluders, Screen-printing, Knitting, Crocheting, Crafternoons, Beeswax Wraps, DIY Christmas/ValentineGifts, Wreath Making, Reducing Food Waste at Home, eating more plants with our Veganuary Series, Kombucha and Fermentation for gut health, Energy Saving, Man and Machine Sewing, Sustainable Floristry, Making Bird Feeders and Natural Planters for the garden, Natural Dyes and various other sewing projects!
We also work with a variety of partners across the city to help benefit other communities and reach even more people - In this period we have run 16 external workshops with partners and community groups such as Duntrune Community Garden, Dundee International Women’s Centre, The Bella Centre, Feeling Strong, Zero Waste Scotland, Home Energy Scotland, Dundee University student groups, Dundee City Council, various primary schools, Boomerang Centre, Menzieshill Community Centre, The Maxwell Centre, Kirkton Community Centre, St Mary’s Community Centre and Advocating Together.
Success & Outcomes
We measure the amount of waste saved through all of our projects - but for workshops it more how many people attended, how many people we had meaningful conversations with, how many have never been to us before, and anecdotal information on the improvements they see as a result. Between June 2023-May2024 we ran 170 workshops, social crafting groups and events, with over 1705 people attending. 769 of these people were new to our workshops, which is a great result for us.
Advice for others looking to do something similar
Speak to your community and find out what they would like to learn about, or share with others. Most of our original programme has come from community members offering to share a particular skill. We were recently awarded funding from the Dundee Climate Fund to bring in other experts and community groups to broaden the range of workshops we can offer and because partnership working is so much more valuable to all of us.
We still have a lot of costs to cover and tend to charge a small fee for most of our workshops. We also found when we started charging that fewer people were not turning up, people value things more when they have paid for them, even if it is a small amount. We also have reduced price tickets, to try and make it as accessible for all.