Introduction
Life on the Edge is proud to work in partnership with the community across the full range of our activities. South Devon’s National Landscape is a beautiful place, an incredible habitat, and a wonderful environment to live, work and play.
This is why the people and communities of the area are built-in to the project and engaging them has been a core aim since day one.
The project acknowledges that some people have more barriers to accessing our wonderful landscapes than others and so Life on the Edge is aiming to actively address this by targeting a large portion of our work towards those communities.
Specifically, we are focusing on the broad audiences of ‘older people who are isolated or at risk of isolation’ and ‘younger people who are disconnected from nature’. Within these groups, we are additionally aiming to reach populations experiencing mental health support needs, those living with dementia, carers and others.
That is not to say that Life on the Edge is not for everyone, we also work with general audiences on a range of activities and most specifically landowners and local residents who we’re very keen to involve at every stage.
Why we’re working with the community
Working with individuals and communities means that we work differently for each piece of work. We co-design our events and are keen to ensure participants’ outcomes are met as well as the project’s.
This means that the aims of different projects will be very different, but we do try to ensure everything we do involves learning, doing and sharing, and that outcomes are as long-term as possible.
In addition to outcomes for our invertebrates and wildflowers, LotE also hopes to ensure that the people and communities of South Devon feel more connected to nature around them, feel more able to get involved and take action for its care, and benefit from the incredible health and wellbeing opportunities that the landscape offers.
How we work with the community
Once we have built a relationship with a community organisation, understood their barriers, needs, wants and aspirations, and co-designed a plan, we’ll then create a programme of activities that are designed to develop participant’s level of engagement, but are also designed to be fun.
We use art, craft and creativity in much of our work, so the sessions are enjoyable and engaging. This creates social opportunities and enables people to learn and notice more about the invertebrates and wildflowers that we use as inspiration.
Examples of our community work with targeted audiences includes:
The Monday Club at Dementia-friendly Parishes around the Yealm, a wellbeing space in partnership with Devon Mind in Wembury, a Life on the Edge takeover at Activities 115 for adults with learning disabilities in Kingsbridge, an after-school club for refugee youth at Parkfield House, Paignton and a theatre course for young carers at Dartmouth Academy. We are hugely grateful to our partners, without whom the project would not be possible. Other regular community partners include: Torbay Communities, Kingsbridge Care Hub, Devon Carers, KEVICC School and The Box, Plymouth.
See our project scrapbook [add link] for more details about our past projects.
Examples of our community work with wider audiences includes; our monthly expert-led walks series [add link], talks to local community groups, bringing our roadshows to large public events, fairs and festivals, and putting on our own large events such as LotE Goes Wild, Paignton and Open Farm Day at East Soar Farm.
Getting involved
We’re always keen to hear from you.
Whether you are an individual looking to find out more, join a session or come out with us on a volunteer task [add link], or an organisation looking to host some creative activities, encourage your participants to connect more with the nature around them, or to get help delivering a project of your own – we recognise that there are individuals and community groups already doing great work across the area and so we host a small grants scheme that aims to support that work.
More details can be found [here].
For all enquiries, please contact the team via button below…
