Week of Action Update!

We have some very exciting news! Over the course of the past week, Teach the Future volunteers, as individuals and in local collectives have taken part in actions across the country to raise awareness for climate education. In the runup to local and mayoral elections across England and devolved parliamentary elections in Wales and Scotland, actions targeted key areas within communities where they could influence politics and policy, with council buildings, schools and civil service offices amongst the long list of locations.

Banner drops, small light projections, picket lines and many more forms of public action were taken part in at locations across the nations of the UK, from villages such as Glenfarg and Frodsham to the county town of Wiltshire and even larger places such as London, Glasgow and Swansea. Banner could be seen across the nations with slogans reading ‘Teach the Future’ and ‘Climate Education Now’ accompanied in many cases with chanting and chalkings!

Aside from our decentralised action, we also commissioned the support of three incredible companies and a supporting organisation to run projections around major cities in our active nation hubs - with Teach the Future graphics and the faces of our team being beamed onto the side of iconic landmarks such as the Houses of Parliament, Whitworth Hall at the University of Manchester, Cardiff Castle, the People Make Glasgow tower and onto buildings up the Royal Mile in Edinburgh.

Internationally, we worked with partner organisation ‘Fridays for Future Climate Education WG’ to send demand documents and letters to every minister for education on the European continent and ran twitter storms targeting heads of state and ministers with relevant portfolios, to break away from our typical borders of work and support other nations in their strive for a education rehaul around the climate emergency!

Coupled with these actions were extensive political engagement as we know that a multi aspect approach to lobbying is crucial to bringing about change, and the displays of support and curiosity from passersby showed to us how much grassroots support we are building - moving past the point of just being a campaign but now an integrated part of a much wider movement.

The student campaigners involved hope that their message on the street, and in press coverage on a local level, will reach candidates standing for positions on May 6th. We hope it will urge them into using their vote and their voice to support our growing movement for a climate justice-oriented curriculum, teacher retraining and green school infrastructure. No matter what level of government a representative may be at there are many changes that can take place at devolved and council levels so we want voters to push for candidates who support our asks and please #VoteForClimateEducation in these upcoming elections - vote like our future’s depend on it, because for many of us they do.

See below for lots of photos of our actions

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