What do I need the funds for exactly?

I really need to raise £5000 to reach the legal threshold to apply to become a UK registered charity. With a registered charity number, I can then apply for big grants to sustain the work that my new project (The Papillon Project) will do for children & young people across Norfolk (I will explain more about this below). Short term: the trustees and I cannot become a charity without £5000 in our bank account. Long term: ultimately, as charity, this £5000 will be spent on the secondary schools that my project will be working with. I will working as an unpaid volunteer in three secondary schools this coming academic year (2019-20) in Litcham School; Dereham Neatherd High School and Sprowston Community Academy and the work has already started (see my website!).

What type of charity am I trying to create?

I have been truly inspired to create a regional school allotment charity to help children and young people across Norfolk, in secondary education, to learn to learn more environmentally friendly and sustainable lives. I intend, with huge amounts of energy and determination, to help secondary schools & colleges across Norfolk to create and develop school allotments where children & young people can experience growing their own food for their school and their wider community.

My website (www.thepapillonproject.com) will explain more about who I am, what I believe in and my previous work creating the multi-award winning school allotment (‘The Allotment Project’) at Reepham High School and College where I currently work part-time. Hopefully you will discover, through my website, that I have very good and honest intentions and, above all, I am absolutely positively bonkers about trying to inspire the next generation to become good stewards of the world. We must better prepare our children/young people for the future. This future must be environmentally friendly and sustainable. Here is a short film about my work creating 'The Allotment Project' which, most importantly, will serve as the model that I will be using in other secondary schools and colleges across Norfolk:

Why do I want to create & develop school allotments in Norfolk?

I very strongly believe that growing food locally is key to how we, as human beings, start to create a better, eco-friendly and sustainable world. School is the perfect place to try and inspire the next generation to ‘grow their own’ food. To be frank, we live in a world that is unbelievably unstainable. I often think that our way of life is like being on a train that is constantly getting faster and faster; eventually, that train will derail. In regards to food, we, as a species, simply cannot sustain the global food market that we seem to have created. If we could only start to grow our food locally to where we live and work, I firmly believe the world would be a better place. For example: locally grown organic food, that local communities produce, would have little or no carbon footprint. Locally grown organic food would also help to solve the future problems of food security. Did you know, for example, that we only produce half of what we consume in the UK with 30% from EU nations along with over 16% from African, North and South America, Asia and Australasia combined. [1] In 2017 the UK was exporting unprecedented levels of food abroad. The carbon footprint created by importing and exporting our food is seriously alarming in a world in which climate change is increasingly being recognised as the most serious threat to humanity in 1000 years.[2] What we do produce in the UK is predominantly and conventionally grown using fossil fuel based products from, chemical fertilizers to pesticides, along with our huge dependency on diesel powered machines to harvest vast monoculture fields. Not to mention of course the colossal volumes of water that is used to produce our food.

References:

[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/food-statistics-pocketbook

[2] https://news.sky.com/story/climate-change-worlds-biggest-threat-in-1-000-years-says-david-attenborough-11571012 .

Creating and developing school allotments is, of course, not just about saving the planet; it’s about helping ourselves and keeping us happy humans. Mental health, especially in children & young people’s lives, seems to be a very pressing issue in schools for many, often uncontrollable, reasons. From my experiences of creating ‘The Allotment Project’ at Reepham High School & College, creating school allotments, as an alternative place of learning, can greatly support schools as they tackle mental health issues by providing a place of genuine escapism for children and young people during their often busy and noisy school day.

In conclusion…

…to my story and message, a school allotment should therefore be designed to inspire children & young people so they can inspire each other to think about growing their own food in the future. This has to be the future of humanity, but, as Jane Goodall once stated:

The wise words of Bill Mollison, the co-founder of ‘permaculture’, also continues to inspire many about what we need, as humans, to live a good life:

Thank you so very much for reading what I have to say and for hopefully understanding exactly what I am trying to achieve in secondary school across Norfolk. Any contribution to my cause, no matter how small, will be hugely appreciated! Thank you very much!