End of Project Evaluation for the Giving Nature a Home in Cardiff Partner Project.

Description

You are invited to quote in competition with others to provide the services specified below. End of Project Evaluation for the Giving Nature a Home in Cardiff Partnership Project. Giving Nature a Home in Cardiff Partnership Project The Giving Nature a Home in Cardiff (GNHAC) project works with schools, local organisations and individuals to help connect urban communities with local wildlife and empower them to act for nature. From 2017-2022, this £500,000 project has been funded by the National Lottery Community Fund and is delivered in partnership with RSPB Cymru, Cardiff Council and Buglife Cymru. 1.0 BACKGROUND: The RSPB is the largest conservation charity in the UK. Our vision is for a world richer in nature, in which all people live well and in harmony with nature in our towns and countryside. We have a moral duty to protect and restore our natural world. We aim to inspire, educate and empower people to take action for nature, to protect it and know that nature is fundamental to human health and wellbeing. Project Vision This project was born out of an urgent need to connect more children with nature. Cardiff has one of the largest percentages of greenspaces of any city in Europe and yet Wales has the lowest percentage of children connected to nature in the UK. With funding from the National Lottery Community Fund, we carried out a pilot project between 2014 – 2017 with our initial aim being to connect 12,500 children with nature. The demand and interest in our pilot project was overwhelming and we actively engaged 18,500 children with nature and consulted with 1,532 members of Cardiff communities collecting data in various ways, at summer events, focus groups or online surveys and actively sought out audiences not already engaged with RSPB Cymru. The majority of feedback confirmed that teachers and families felt nature was important for children to be engaged with but did not find there were opportunities within Cardiff to connect with nature or did not have the confidence or awareness to make those connections or take action for it. Teachers also fed back that there was a huge gap across Cardiff for early years/KS1 engagement and a lack of quality bilingual resources making it more difficult for Welsh Language schools to engage children with nature. We spoke to Cardiff University’s Wildlife Society and many students confirmed that they were unlikely to take action for nature as they did not have the confidence too. They were keen to find opportunities where they could use their knowledge and practical skills, develop their confidence and gain experience which would help them in building their CV and leadership skills. We identified that many of the existing environmental outreach schemes working with Cardiff schools and volunteers were mainly focused on environmental issues such as waste management climate change and recycling. There were limited volunteering opportunities across many sectors in Cardiff for 16 – 24 year olds, and only one opportunity offered structured development by way of a volunteering plan or internship. Many focus groups expressed a desire for spending time in nature and volunteering but mentioned that one of the biggest barriers was time and that there was a gap in the Cardiff market for nature engagement that could fit around busy lives. Cardiff City Council are a key partner to this project. The Outdoor Cardiff Team help to connect the project with existing community initiatives, and support many of our events and volunteer activities through its parks and greenspaces, enabling the Council to engage new audiences into its parks. We partnered with Buglife to continue their Urban Buzz project which ran from 2015 and was due to cease in 2017. The project aimed to improve greenspaces for pollinators through community action, encouraging communities to plant pollinator friendly plants and improve knowledge about the importance of pollinators. Project volunteers were keen to continue t