Trail site 3 Young Roots at Redkite Park Street – February 2017
Our Fifth Young Roots Conservation Village, at Red Kite’s Park Street Sheltered Housing Site was a great success in beautiful winter sunshine! We met with local residents several times in order to scope the improvements they wanted to their home. Our Young People Volunteers were brilliant and we achieved so much together:
• Thinned trees along the river, bringing light back & creating kingfisher perches
• A significant river clean pick with bags and bags of rubbish removed
• A wildflower river meander strip with seed and plugs
• The river bank cleared, gardened
• Water marginal & pollinator plugs planted along the river, increasing diversity
• Planted eight dwarf apple trees (all different varieties)
• Planted hawthorn, rose & blackthorn to deter trespassers
• Brightened up the entrance area with an edible honeysuckle green wall & art
• A fantastic film
• 3 Large scale art installations with Dan Wilson’s guidance
• 10 bird and bat boxes made, painted & put up
Common room before
Common room after
Litter team
Wildflower river meadow
‘This was fun.’
Safayah‘I love it !!!’
ImaanTeam:
It was a huge team effort. The project received 59 young people and 13 adult volunteer sessions worth of support. By this time the project had received 634 young people and 334 adult volunteer sessions worth of support already.
Leadership:
Young people leaders started to emerge in a variety of different areas for those who have worked with us time and again. For example our young film makers edited the Youtube video, a task done by Highway Productions previously. Our young conservationists showed initiative and were able to lead tasks whilst being supported by a ranger or experienced adult volunteer.
As well as the main funders, we are also thankful to Marsh and Micklefield Big Local and Rivers and Wetlands Community Days who also supported these Trail Site days.
One of the aims of the project was to get younger and older people working and having fun together. Keep an eye out on the events page on our website for further activities.
