Reclaiming
the wild
This great Big Green Week we want to put an emphasis on Wild spaces. Wild to us is more than nature.
The word ‘wild’ comes from the word ‘will’ so to us being wild is equally about the ‘wild on the inside’ or our own inner will to create change as it is about ‘wild on the outside’ and connecting to nature in the places we live.
Being Wild is an important part of building a thriving, active community. Wild is about creating places for people and nature to thrive together. It is about overcoming the complex barriers that prevent being outdoors in a natural environment becoming an everyday occurrence for so many of us.
Wild is about connecting to one another in meaningful ways and remembering our connection to the places we live and everything else that lives there. Wild exists in Birmingham and Solihull and we want to celebrate it and encourage us all to experience it.
This wild week we have a week of activities from Cook-along, Nature challenge, Wild Selfies, September growing guide, cycle sessions, and WILD workshops to get you thinking green! View our activities, resources, and Community stories below. Follow us on Social media @theaws and post your wild selfies, join our nature walk challenge and share the Wild week with family and friends.
Our Activities
Our Resources
Plants do not grow merely to satisfy ambitions or to fulfill good intentions.
They thrive because someone expended effort on them.
Our Stories
We don’t do this alone, this work has been funded through programmes such as Active Communities and working in partnership with Primary Care Networks and in collaboration with projects such as Future Parks Accelerator. We also recognise all of the work of so many passionate individuals, the friends of groups, the guerilla gardeners and the play advocates who lead the way. We aim to add our voice, always championing the needs of those in the community who have least access and experience the greatest barriers to accessing all the benefits that the wild world offers.
To celebrate all that the wild world has to offer we have pulled together a whole load of ideas to inspire and support you to get out and enjoy all the beautiful green spaces we have around us.
Reclaiming Urban WILD Space
Over the last few years we have been exploring how we can change this and we have been delivering a range of initiatives:
- Exploring how we can reclaim disused or underused space and converting to community use through Reclaiming the Wild Commons;
- Supporting community food growing by convening the Growing Network, a collaboration of multiple partners;
- Delivering micro-greening measures into schemes to support active travel and build community connection, for example Low Traffic Neighborhoods;
- Pioneering green social prescribing as a means to support mental and physical wellbeing for those residents experiencing significant barriers to accessing and feeling confident in green space.
