We delivered an exciting new programme of repairs, social groups, workshops/events, all of which have complemented and increased engagement with our existing projects, ensuring we are reaching many more people with a positive climate message. 

Transition Dundee

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Addressed Challenges:

  • Health and Wellbeing
  • Waste / Circular Economy

Action Areas:

  • Circular Economy

Initiative Purpose:

  • Mitigation and adaptation

The Story

People gathered in a dance studio

This project was about providing individuals/groups with the opportunity to make a difference to the environment one small project at a time, with a hands-on approach and with peer support and encouragement from The Wardrobe and wider Transition Dundee team. We added a range of new activities/services:

 

  • A clothing repair service to encourage our community to care more for their clothes
  •  A new social upcycling group to make use of the vast range of donated clothing/textiles and stop them from going to waste, as well as allowing our community to share skills with each other, build confidence and make new friends. This beautifully complemented our existing social groups; knitting, crochet & sewing. The new group enabled us to make a much larger number of items to either give away to partner organisations or sell in our shop to raise funds and awareness of waste
  • A much wider range of and number of workshops and events; repairing, upcycling, recycling, embroidery, crochet, beginner sewing, rag rugs, memory bears, quilting, a wide range of sewing projects, soap-making, a range of food fermentation/pickling/preserving/foraging workshops, eco-gift making, jesmonite gifts, houseplant care, upcycled bottles, zine making, herbal remedies, the value of volunteering, apple pressing, mending in public, mental health awareness, student clothing events, draught excluders and more
  • A new youth project: we spent a lot of time reaching out to groups already providing services to young people, building connections and running climate themed workshops. We wanted to ensure young people from a range of backgrounds were able to engage with climate action and this proved to be the best route. Building these new connections has enabled us to begin growing a youth network that will lead to the formation of a ‘Young Climate Champions’ group following a successful continuation funding bid this year
  • The new Workshop/Repair and Youth Work Coordinators were able to work together and provide a range of workshops for young people such as scrunchie making, tote bag making, parent and child beginner sewing, rock painting, eco reindeer food and more

 

Participants/volunteers were able to gain skills and experience in all of the above, minimising consumption and coming together to talk about sustainability in a more accessible and positive way. It was a fantastic opportunity for us to involve harder-to-reach collectives and young people through collaboration with others. The above activities originated from consultation with our community and this proved to be a successful approach.

 

In terms of collaborations, we worked with a range of existing and new community groups and organisations; The Maxwell Centre, Tayside Council for Alcohol, Feeling Strong, Blackness Primary School, Dundee Rep Theatre, Dundee Carers Centre, Campy Growers, University of Dundee, DUSA, DCFN, Girls Who Walk Dundee, Abertay University, One Parent Families Scotland, LGBTQ+ Youth and many more. By working with these other groups, we have reached more people across Dundee and widened our network.

Success & Outcomes

Feedback from community participants, many of them first time participants, was extremely positive as well as the success in numbers. While we didn’t quite meet the total number of participants, we did get lots of new participants, so we have clearly managed to engage lots of new people!

Climate conversations are known to be the most effective way of increasing climate change awareness and our workshops have provided the ideal time and safe space for these to take place. Participants have reflected, shared and proposed ideas for taking action, improving what Transition does and how each individual can help on a daily basis.

 

Here are just a few quotes from participants of the various projects:

 

“Yesterday I attended the introduction to sewing class with Georgia. What a great day it was! The atmosphere was relaxed and friendly and we learned so much in a day. I would be very interested in any follow up classes there might be” – Sharon, Sewing Workshop attendee 

 

“Thank you for your service. The trousers feel great now. There's not many shops that radiate so much joy as yours. Lovely people…” John, Repair Service User 

 

“The confidence, enthusiasm and interest the [upcycling group] has given me is brilliant - it’s a standing joke at home now as I think I can have a go at making all sorts!”- Terri, Upcycling Group volunteer 

 

“It’s been a real pleasure being part of this project over the past few months. Through it, I got to experience a side of the city's community that I likely wouldn’t have encountered otherwise, and I’m grateful for the chance to give something back in return”. – Boryana, workshop leader 

 

“P4 loved the workshop and loved visiting the community fridge so thank you for giving us the opportunity to do that!” – Tiffany, teacher from Blackness Primary, on making old gloves into Glove Monsters and visiting Dundee West End Community

Advice for others looking to do something similar

A key part of this project was to build relationships with other organisations and projects, this takes time and should be developed in a slow and steady way to achieve better outcomes. For example a youth worker staff member from the Maxwell Centre, first attended a full day training at Transition to gain basic sewing skills and then our team delivered a series of workshops with them and their youth group. They have since used these skills for costume making and some have shown additional interest in sustainable and creative careers. 

 

It’s important to start promotion weeks before the event, especially when the audience is less familiar with your work as an organisation. For example we ran a youth drop in session which had very little promotion, only a few days. This resulted in low participation whilst sessions with longer promotion had much better results. Listing events on Eventbrite, whilst it has it’s flaws, helps attract new people who have never heard of your organisation before also. 

 

We have found there is a need from a lot of other community groups to provide free workshops as many are lacking the skills, budget, knowledge and the experience of running sewing and upcycling workshops, or other climate-related skills which are very popular. As funding is becoming less and less available across the sector it is a win-win to work together, share skills and build relationships between us and our volunteers.