Can Do South Yorkshire

For the past 6 weeks, our team has worked closely with Can Do South Yorkshire to refine their vision of creating climate action hubs across the region and support their upcoming application for the National Lottery Full Award. The project led to an engagement toolkit that combines a physical toolkit and educational resources.

There are already many organisations and individuals across South Yorkshire advocating ways we can tackle climate change. Can Do South Yorkshire is a growing partnership that aims to draw these disparate groups together, putting on events to achieve higher impact and more effective climate action. As explained by our client, ‘together, we are a bigger voice’. Through discussion with the client, we came to see Can Do as a facilitator who could provide resources and know-how to empower their partners to occupy space for temporary climate hubs when the opportunity arises – be it a market stall, empty shop, or community hall.

The toolkit, therefore, needed to be as flexible as possible, while also considering how to keep the need for driving to a minimum. So, we designed the toolkit around three key scales: post office parcel, bike, and transit van. Collaborative working was fundamental to the project, and online and in-person design charrettes were used to generate ideas for each scale. These ideas were then distilled and discussed with the client, a Can Do partner, and a local carpenter. The team then split sub-groups who worked intensely to develop and construct each idea.

Alongside this toolkit, we created a set of educational resources which can be sent out to new or existing partners when needed. This includes a welcome booklet, public engagement guide, and toolkit manual. In addition, a client handover document contains useful information for further developing the resources we’ve provided.

Finally, we tested how the engagement toolkit would work in action by hosting a Climate event in which two of Can Do’s partners were invited to hold an activity. We also acted as a partner, using the event to exhibit our work and gain feedback from partners and the public. This was extremely valuable to the project and enabled the client and ourselves to assess the success of the toolkit, how they might be used in the future, and how they could be improved.

Credits

Student Team: 

Luke Brennan-Scott, Phoebe Stevens, Charlotte Staton, Yujie Xu (Maggie), Yupeng Wang (Paul), Zhilin Li, Flora Sallis-Chandler, Lemar Darien-Campbell, Martin Veselov, Xin Wang (Nancy), Andzela Petreikyte, Mingyang Wang (Michael), Chris Shaw, Mikey Serrano

Mentor:

 Carolyn Butterworth