Our phase two grantees

Mission 

Creating a toolkit for justice-led Health Impact Assessments, to enable marginalised communities to identify risks to health and wellbeing as a result of local ‘regeneration’ work. 

Background 

Centric Lab and Clean Air Southall & Hayes (CASH) joined forces in 2018 after they collectively identified a clear mismatch between the regulation and policy guidance that safeguard peoples’ health and the reality experienced by communities. Together, they are creating a toolkit for a justice-led Health Impact Assessment, working with communities to acknowledge their lived realities to identify risks to communities’ health, well-being and resilience.  

During Phase 2 of the Community Knowledge Fund, they will test the toolkit within local authority teams with the aim of developing a blueprint that can be applied to local planning guidance. 

Mission 

Breaking down barriers through intergenerational dialogue to create resilient, safer communities that are safe to grow up and grow old in. 

Background 

Generations Working Together supports the development and integration of intergenerational work across Scotland.  

During Phase 2 of the Community Knowledge Fund, this project will test to see if forming intergenerational relationships between younger and older people can help alleviate perceived fear of crime, reduce ageism, build empathy and encourage social connections between people of all ages. Generations will come together through ideas generated in Phase 1 which include the production of a drama and filmmaking.

Mission 

Creating change through increasing knowledge and understanding of intersectional experiences of emergency and/or temporary accommodation (E/TA).  

Background 

Justlife works to make peoples stay in temporary accommodation as short, safe and healthy as possible. Often, people living in E/TA are treated as a homogenous group, leading to services that are neither safe nor effective, and in many cases, can be actively harmful. Through peer research, this project aims to access the knowledge held by the diverse E/TA community in an ethical, effective and genuinely empowering way, helping to inform the systemic changes needed to improve service delivery. 

During Phase 2 of the Community Knowledge Fund, Justlife will test the peer research manual that they co-created with peer researchers in Phase 1, all of whom had firsthand experience of living in E/TA. Feedback from this process will be used to further develop the manual before being shared with partners to support the homeless sector engage peer researchers in E/TA service design and delivery. 

Mission 

Developing a youth-led research centre to drive decision making about tech training and support young people into high-quality jobs.

Background 

MadLab is a grassroots innovation organisation working with technology and people to address challenges and shape solutions. The Covid-19 pandemic widened access to online and hybrid learning programmes, but major national and regional initiatives have failed to increase the skills and, therefore, job prospects of Greater Manchester residents – particularly young people. This project aims to change this narrative by developing a youth-led research centre, supporting young people to articulate the challenges they face when engaging with online learning programmes and co-design solutions to these. 

During Phase 2 of the Community Knowledge Fund, MadLab will continue to engage with and be led by the experiences of their ‘Young Researchers’. They will co-design and co-deliver a series of “investigational prototypes” to provide essential insights and address the paucity of evidence-based understanding of adult digital skills learning and the barriers faced by young people. Young Researchers will be trained in analysis and supported to present their findings to policy makers and the wider community.  

Mission 

Empowering young peer researchers to investigate how climate change affects young people in terms of their health, education, opportunities, and social lives. 

Background 

Children in Wales is committed to prioritising children’s perspectives, breaking down age and location barriers that prevent young people’s views and ideas from being heard. This project was inspired by young people identifying climate change as a key priority, as well as limited opportunities existing for young people to participate in environmental projects. 

During Phase 2 of the Community Knowledge Fund, Children in Wales will support their group of young peer researchers to undertake the research project they designed in Phase 1: ‘Sustainability and the cost of living a sustainable life. What things get in the way of being eco-friendly according to cost, age, culture and the area of Wales people live in?’  

Mission 

Supporting community involvement and adaptive action in climate change efforts within the Outer Hebrides through interactive participatory mapping activities and creative practice. 

Background 

Climate Hebrides CIC aims to tackle climate change in the Outer Hebrides through education, training, activities and action. This project aims to develop a tool that will gather and map different climate change challenges experienced by communities across the Outer Hebrides to help inform climate adaption planning and policies at a strategic level.  

During Phase 2 of the Community Knowledge Fund, Climate Hebrides CIC will grow their workforce and concentrate on engaging with young people and elders, exploring ways to support them to contribute their knowledge and experiences onto their Mapping for Change tool as developed in Phase 1. They also plan to export the community data held on this tool to GSI-based platforms, making the data accessible to support decision making at a strategic level. 

Mission 

Exploring the incremental shifts in knowledge and power necessary to develop a more sustainable model of energy generation and consumption in Mossley.  

Background 

Global Grooves create environments for carnival arts to happen, bringing people together to learn, share, collaborate and develop through dance, music and visual arts. This project offers the local people of Mossley a chance to engage in a climate positive response to the damaging effects of climate change and test to see if Micklehurst Brook could generate meaningful amounts of power.  

During Phase 2 of the Community Knowledge Fund, Global Grooves will look to expand the reach of their work through formal workshops in schools and the community. They will explore the role carnival arts has to play in driving excitement and engagement, and how readily this ‘enthusiasm’ can be transformed into genuine action by sharing their story with regional and national stakeholders. 

Mission 

Creating a community-led and area-based retrofit programme to tackle fuel poverty in Liverpool.  

Background 

Homebaked Community Land Trust was created by local people due to the failures of top-down regeneration. The Cosy Homes project was launched in response to local fuel poverty rates being double the national average and local homes scoring in the lowest 20% for domestic energy efficiency. The project aims to work in an equal partnership with local authorities to break down silos in the local retrofit landscape.  

During Phase 2 of the Community Knowledge Fund, Homebaked Community Land Trust will build on the momentum generated in Phase 1 and deliver a local, scalable, demonstrator project to contribute to the roll-out of whole-house retrofit schemes across tenures in Liverpool. They will expand their engagement with local householders, specifically those who rent privately and landlords, to research householder barriers and motivations towards retrofit, placing the embodied knowledge and lived experiences of local people at the heart of their innovation process.

Mission 

Developing and refining agroecological practices across the UK through landworker knowledge exchange.  

Background 

Landworkers’ Alliance is a community made up of farmers, growers and foresters across the UK. They share a vision for a better food and land-use system for everyone and are engaged in agroecological practices which are better for people and the planet. Agroecological practitioners stand at the forefront of building a sustainable food, fuel and fibre system. Within this community, small-scale research is already refining and advancing farmers’ methods, but is limited in scale. By pooling knowledge and equipping farmers to carry out further research, it is hoped that this project will support the development of agroecological practices and increase the rate of change towards more sustainable farming practices.  

During Phase 2 of the Community Knowledge Fund, Landworkers’ Alliance aim to build on the interest generated amongst landworkers in Phase 1, creating four communities of research with the aim of agreeing standard methodologies for data measurement and recording. These will be used for comparison across the sector.   They plan to share their findings in a conference at the end of the project, bringing together farmer-researchers, academics and policymakers to connect farmer knowledge, experiences and priorities into the formal research agenda.   

Mission 

Upskilling communities to achieve clean and healthy waters by putting people and their priorities at the heart of citizen science. 

Background 

Westcountry Rivers Trust (WRT) have cared for the rivers, streams, lakes, wetlands and esturaries of the Westcountry for 30 years. Climate change is a serious concern across the southwest, impacting the environment, community, and the economy. With public interest intensifying from media coverage of water pollution issues, Westcountry Citizen Science Investigations (CSI) address shortfalls in Government-funded monitoring by empowering communities to collect data, track pollution and take action over poor water quality. This project aims to widen participation by building on their existing citizen science model to create a network of local catchment communities that lead river groups and identify the key questions they want answers to. 

During Phase 2 of the Community Knowledge Fund, Westcountry Rivers Trust aim to expand their volunteering model as piloted in Phase 1 and grow their local ‘River Guardian’ groups. These groups will receive training in widening participation to help attract young people from under-represented urban areas and diversify the demographic make-up of their volunteers. To help them do this, Westcountry Rivers Trust plan to liaise with education providers, youth groups and EDI groups to better understand and alleviate the barriers facing young people and co-create bespoke workshops to attract young people into their volunteering work. They also aim to develop a template for intergenerational working. 

Mission 

Developing a community-led approach to exploring, understanding and tackling the root causes of racism in inner cities, using the London borough of Camden and Birmingham as comparison points.   

Background 

Camden Giving created this project in partnership with Birmingham based brap to address a shared challenge in both Camden and Birmingham – the ongoing impact of structural racism on resident outcomes. The project aims to support local residents to play an active role in research and learn about their local area by working with older and younger generations together. 

During Phase 2 of the Community Knowledge Fund, Camden Giving and brap aim to expand the reach of their work in Phase 1, engaging with a wider range of stakeholders about how to tackle systemic racism whilst building on the skills and research methods of their community researchers. Camden Giving aims to use this work to inform grant panels and educate policymakers, businesses and local government to ensure funds, policies and plans are relevant to the diverse needs of Camden’s communities. Brap aims to identify key transition points, and thus opportunities for intervention, that are critical to people’s experiences of racism in education and the labour market. It is hoped that by addressing these points and bringing stakeholders into discussions around them, could help disrupt inter-generational patterns of structural racism and bring about better outcomes for young BME residents.   

Both Camden Giving and brap aim to compare and make sense of their findings and learnings across their respective areas and make these available to support other areas interested in tackling systemic racism.

Mission 

Addressing food insecurity in North Devon by connecting vulnerable residents with local food producers to voice their concerns and share their ideas around accessing local food. 

Background 

Devon Community Foundation developed this project in response to the challenges faced by vulnerable residents of North Devon in accessing good quality affordable food in what is predominately an agricultural area and home to a host of local food producers and farmers. 

During Phase 2 of the Community Knowledge Fund, Devon Community Foundation aim to use and build on the insights and ideas generated in Phase 1 to help bridge the gap between local food producers and local people accessing local food.