Green Hope Hub

I was inspired due to the fact there are many crises brought about by climate change, such as flooding, the rise of sea levels, loss of habitats for the animals, and the rising temperatures around the world. From the news, there is considerable tension between the government and its citizens due to the lack of climate action. Often I heard in School there was a climate crisis, and there were no follow-ups such as how to take action, so I was lost and did not know what to do afterward in this scenario when I did wish to take action.

The idea is to form a charity to provide opportunities and resources to students of all ages to take climate action. We plan to work in Edinburgh as a start-up where we partner with local charities, schools, and social enterprises. We will provide training sessions to the students to learn about industries that contribute significantly to the climate crisis, such as fast fashion, food industry, transportation, and draw comparisons between such models and real-life 'green' business models. We will have online Q&A sessions, internship opportunities in the social enterprise/charities, fundraising opportunities, and networking. In the long run, we wish to bring all the students, environment activists, and organizations interested in climate action together, such as creating an online platform to have a healthy ecosystem. We hope to provide many future "green entrepreneurs."

A survey were conducted in schools where about 95% of the teachers answered that climate change is only mentioned. The idea is unique as it emphasizes sustainable education and take action rather than mentioning at school levels as the young generation is the future. The students are equipped with age-appropriate and practical knowledge and skills to act. Programs are tailored to the student's age and commitment level to manage their schoolwork. We will provide students with external and professional support when they wish to take action and its a long term support. I am in the stage of market research.

My potential customers are the local charities, NGOs, social enterprises, and commercial firms who wish to recruit employees with sustainability skills. Since the work requires collaborations between the local charities, NGOs, social enterprises, they will gain more influence as many people would have the opportunity to know them. This program emphasizes climate action; firms participating in it would build their reputation and have the chance to build relationships with students with good green business skills, thus potentially improving their recruitment.

Teachers will also have the opportunity to incorporate the skills into their daily teaching, which would boost their competitiveness in the job market. The students can also use this experience to take climate action and use it on their university applications, which is a bonus point. I am also aiming to partner up with environmental activists or any professionals who have researched about climate change will have the opportunity to share their work and encourage more of the young generation to take action. According to research by a coalition of green charities, about 70% of British people want urgent political action to tackle climate change and protect the natural environment. So the whole society is the stakeholder. Funding could come from crowdfunding, public funding, charities, NGOs; I am also looking to build a website where the firms can pay a small fee for using our website for their advertisements.

I would need funding to build the website and other possible expenses when delivering the sessions. I will need to build connections with local charities, NGOs, social enterprises, schools. For the funding part, it's possible to collaborate with the societies in the University of Edinburgh, which considers sustainable development goals such as conscious change or investment clubs or economics society where they may be interested in adding some sustainability aspects into their reputation. So it can be any societies who may be interested in this. Then, I am thinking about running some funding activities or raffles when collaborating with the societies. Further, I would conduct my research and send emails to reach out to the local organizations and schools to explore possible partnership opportunities. Also, post on social media and ask people around me to spread the news. I will also need volunteers which can be recruited through local schools or from the public and societies at the University of Edinburgh. The societies in Edinburgh may also support me during networking as I am involved in some of the societies in Edinburgh and I am hoping to seek support from them.

I had built the project with a simple website tool as I faced the challenge of not knowing to code since I did not do anything similar when I was in University. I have learned it's important to have a long-term impact from the project rather than a short-term for the project, which is essential to know. I also think the project is hard to carry out as it encounters many challenges, such as people are not very interested in it, and I think it takes time for it to work out. I hope the simple website I built will be able to support the young generation as they are the future.

Built With

• simplesite