My initiative is designed for and delivered in London
Yes
I am 18 years of age or above, by the application deadline.
Yes
My organisation is a registered UK entity and has a London-based address.
Yes
My organisation is a non-profit (e.g. school, university, or local authority) — not a for-profit, which can only join as a partner.
Yes
If there is a for-profit organisation as a partner in my initiative, they work on a cost-recovery basis only.
Yes
My solution is implemented at scale, or if not, I have a clear business plan, a minimum viable solution (prototype, pilot, or proof of concept), and evidence of work or impact in London within your coalition.
Yes
I am aware that, if I am submitting more than one application to a Challenge run by Ashoka and Go! London, only one of them is able to progress through the stages.
Yes
Are you an employee (and their children and grandchildren) of Ashoka or any of its respective affiliates and participating advertising and promotion agencies?
No
I have read and accepted the Challenge Terms & Conditions
1
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Last Name
Pronouns
Email address
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Are you an Ashoka Fellow?
Are you applying from an organization founded by an Ashoka Fellow?
If you are applying from an organization founded by an Ashoka Fellow, please specify the name and organisation of the fellow below.
Initiative Title
Climate Connected Communities in Lewisham: Active. Learn. Adapt. Change
Lead Organization Name
Field Studies Council
My initiative is designed for and delivered in London
1
Year that you started/ registered your organisation
1943
Website URL(s) or Social Media Handles
https://www.field-studies-council.org/ https://www.ptpcoaching.co.uk/bpp-home https://beckenhamplacepark.com/ https://equalinks.co.uk/
Initiative Stage
Idea (You have a solid concept and are hoping to get started in the future)
Sectors/Themes: What topic does your project most directly relate to?
Environment & Sustainability
Initiative Summary: Describe your initiative in one sentence
Climate Connected Communities in Lewisham brings young people together through outdoor activity in Beckenham Place Park to be active, learn, adapt and make climate‑positive change. Young people in Downham and Bellingham are already feeling the effects of climate change, from extreme weather to reduced access to safe, affordable places to be active. Despite living close to the Park, many face financial, cultural and confidence‑based barriers that limit participation. Our project transforms the Park into a year‑round space for climate‑resilient activity, co‑designed with young people. Free water based sessions in paddle sports, team challenges and walking and orienteering routes make outdoor activity accessible to all, while practical climate learning will be embedded in every session. This helps young people understand how climate change affects the places where they live and play and what actions they can take. The Field Studies Council, PTP Coaching, Lewisham Council and Equalinks partnership have a long term commitment to the Park. The project a scalable, low‑cost model that creates long‑term a public asset and strengthens health, belonging and climate awareness for young people and more resilient active communities taking local climate action.
Challenge Focus: What topic does your initiative most directly relate to?
Climate action through awareness and engagement
The Problem: What problem are you helping to solve and who will benefit the most from your solution? How close are you to the problem and/or community impacted?
Climate change already affects young people in Lewisham where a climate emergency has been declared. Local impacts limit participation in physical activity, especially for those who rely on outdoor and low cost opportunities. Young people tell us they care about climate change, but solutions feel disconnected from their lived experience. There is a gap between what they learn in school and what they see in their local environment and rising costs make participation harder for families under financial pressure. Lewisham has a higher than average deprivation, particularly in Downham and Bellingham. Despite being within walking distance of Beckenham Place Park (the Park), engagement with the Park and its free opportunities remains low. Young people face systemic barriers to outdoor participation and climate action, including lack of knowledge, cultural and language barriers, safety concerns, cost, and absence of relatable role models. These barriers increase climate vulnerability and reduce opportunities for healthy, active lifestyles. Partners work closely with these communities and see this daily. By addressing the barriers that restrict access to outdoor activity, and by building climate understanding rooted in local experience, this project aims to open up new opportunities for young people, their families and wider community.
Your approach: How are you addressing the problem outlined above? How are you using the power of sport and physical activity to build awareness, shift behavior, and enable sustainable participation for all in response to the climate crisis? We'd love to know about the origin of your idea, and what was your "aha" moment" that led you to take action?
The Park offers an ideal environment to explore climate impact and resilience with free, open access. Our “aha” moment came when we saw with the right support, young people could use the park confidently year‑round, improving physical activity levels while developing climate awareness. Our approach is to deliver a programme of free outdoor activities in the Park, co‑designed and youth led. Activities will include water safety, paddle sports, team challenges and orienteering route and walking trails—introducing young people to a wide range of ways to be active, beyond traditional sport. The permanent, open‑access orienteering route will be a new asset for the area, creating a climate‑resilient activity, free and available year‑round. Climate learning will be embedded throughout for example, sessions will incorporate low‑carbon and active travel, re‑use of equipment and discussion of how climate affects weather, outdoor safety and habitats. Sessions will be led by experienced staff and can support safe, positive experiences in all seasons. The programme is designed with different levels of engagement so young people can participate in ways that suit their confidence and ability. We will run leader training and host community days that normalise active use of the Park. By combining physical activity with climate understanding, the initiative helps young people see how climate action connects directly to healthier lifestyles, reduced costs and stronger community resilience, aligned with the Let’s get Lewisham Moving activity strategy. By focusing on behaviours, the project will inspire a climate aware community to do things differently and creates lasting, locally owned change, shifting norms around outdoor and climate resilient activity.
Collaboration with young people and the community: In what ways does your initiative engage young people and community members closest to the problem? What role do they play in building the solution you deliver?
The project partners already work in the Park and have longstanding relationships with organisations in Downham and Bellingham. Through these existing connections, we engage directly with the young people most affected by low access to outdoor, climate resilient activity. Our previous projects have shown repeated engagement over time builds confidence, strengthens connection to nature, and leads young people to share their learning widely with peers and family members. These insights have shaped our commitment to long term, layered participation in this project, with young people co-deciding content, pace and delivery. Participant feedback from Equalinks on a residential project highlighted increases in confidence, inspiration and connection to nature. A follow up focus group with community representatives made clear recommendations: add value to existing projects and ensure continuity; champion community voices and leadership; connect action to local spaces young people can influence; and design activities that ripple out through peers, families and schools. These insights shape this initiative, ensuring activities are practical, locally rooted, and adaptable to different levels of engagement. Young people are partners shaping the solution, not just participants, they will co design content that feels relevant and engaging to their community. Our goal is to ensure young people are true collaborators in both design and delivery, shaping a project that reflects their needs, priorities and culture. By embedding young people at the centre of the process, this initiative builds local ownership, strengthens community resilience, and supports the development of youth climate champions whose influence extends into the wider community.
Potential for/Evidence of Impact: How do you imagine your initiative will make a difference in raising climate awareness, shifting behaviors, or reducing environmental impact or harm? If you have already implemented it, what difference have you made so far? What is the impact your initiative has had¡, and/or what impact do you envision having in the future?
Our initiative will create long term impact that sees behaviour shifts towards climate positive actions integrated in safer, more frequent outdoor activity improving health, belonging, and community resilience. Evidence shows outdoor learning improves health, develops personal competencies, deepens connection to nature and supports pro environmental behaviours (IOL HQOL). We will reach c. 4,000-5,000 young people through sessions and open days over the project period, plus reach through leader training and open access resources, which will enable immediate and lasting behaviour change. Free to use walking routes and new permanent orienteering course create public assets with wide reach and low maintenance costs. Climate actions introduced in sessions, e.g. active travel, low waste habits and climate impact on local safety and participation, equip young people with practical behaviours. The combination of activities is designed to build confidence, increase regular outdoor participation and strengthen connection to local green space. Over time, we expect to see real world behaviour change and sustained use of the Park as a climate resilient activity hub. We will evidence impact using techniques including user numbers and equity data, usage analytics (downloads), pre/post surveys and self-efficacy. Qualitative case studies will capture personal stories. We will use carbon footprint tools to evidence shifts in climate positive behaviour. Subject to funding, we will work with an external evaluator to support a structured approach to assessing scale, depth and long term impact.
Innovation: What is different about your initiative compared to other solutions that are already out there? How is your approach original and innovative?
Our initiative is innovative because it brings together a unique blend of partners, embedded climate learning, and open access physical activity resources in a space with no comparable offer. We consider activity in its broadest sense and enable young people to move, explore and build climate understanding in ways that feel relevant to their everyday lives. In existing work we see sport or physical activity within PE disconnected from climate and sustainability learning within e.g. geography. Yet caring for, safely using and adapting local green and blue spaces requires an climate understanding. This project embeds climate action and learning into outdoor activity, where it is part of the experience, not an add on, so young people understand how climate change affects places. The project will introduce new local assets, with water based activities, walks and a new orienteering route, a low cost, high impact asset and free digital walking routes, open year round, free to use, and available to all Park users, extending impact beyond those taking part. Our approach is innovative in widening access through multiple ways to engage, from walks to orienteering challenges to paddlesports, we support young people with different abilities, needs and confidence levels. This flexibility tackles structural barriers faced by under represented groups, including cultural relevance, low confidence, limited previous experience, and concerns about safety or belonging. Equalinks is a trusted voice ensuring the offer reaches those under represented groups and they feel welcome and structural barriers (culture, confidence, relevance) are tackled. By addressing both practical and cultural barriers, the project shifts norms around outdoor learning, climate action and park use.
Roles and Responsibilities: Describe how responsibilities are shared among your team or partners.
The partnership consists of organisations that already work together and have an existing relationship, and this funding brings an opportunity to develop a joined up offer. Together, the partnership ensures the initiative is community rooted, has the right expertise and operationally sustainable. We will work directly with communities to build practical knowledge, confidence and skills that can be embedded into everyday actions and sustained beyond the project. Field Studies Council: Lead partner. Responsible for project coordination, overall delivery timetable, quality assurance, evaluation, budget and reporting, safeguarding, communication. Focus on climate awareness content, orienteering and walking routes, teacher CPD, and community day delivery. Liaison with provider(s) for orienteering route and liaison with Provider of walking route app. PTP: Partner with focus on water activity and safety sessions linked to climate related risks, teacher CPD, community day delivery and supports orienteering and walking routes. Lewisham: Provides permissions, aligns the project with borough priorities. Hosts the orienteering route and play, BMX/skate areas ensuring safe access, as current public park routine maintenance. Support orienteering route layout. Supports engagement with wider teams in Lewisham, with a climate and wellbeing strategy focus. And with local community groups. Equalinks: Core community partner. Supports engagement with local groups and communities and wider networks.
Viability and Scalability: How are you setting your organization up for success, and what is your plan to ensure operational sustainability of your solution and its impact? What are your ideas for scaling your initiative to the next level?
The project is set up for success with a partnership blending expertise in climate education, outdoor activity and community engagement with a long-term commitment to the Park. Operational sustainability is strengthened by existing safeguarding, health and safety, supervision, data protection, HR, finance and communications systems ensuring the project can be delivered safely, efficiently and at scale from the outset. The project will not sit separately from our core work. The activities and resources developed will be embedded into standard programmes, making them viable beyond the initial funding period. Real time data and participant feedback will guide adaptation, ensuring the outputs remain responsive to local needs and resilient to climate related challenges. The orienteering course and walking routes are a long term public asset with low cost maintenance. Leader training will build confidence enabling independent activity. Embedding practical climate awareness across all sessions encourages young people to apply what they learn supporting wider adoption of climate positive behaviours in the community. The project is designed to scale, designed so the impact can be evaluated and the outputs packaged for use in other parks. The model is replicable and adaptable to different physical environments and community contexts with further funding.
Upcoming Milestones: Please provide an overview of the milestones that are required for your initiative to come to fruition/ to grow.
Based on a Sept 2026 start date and assuming 18-month delivery timetable the following timeline outlines the activities that we would deliver. The milestones are based around school terms which will work best for young people and schools. This timetable would be further developed in the capacity building programme. September 2026: Partnership Confirmation and final agreements. Autumn 2026 set up and co-design: Recruit schools and youth groups. Strengthen partnerships with local schools, and community groups. Co-design and pilot content with the local schools and community groups. Design and install orienteering route and walking routes. Design and create climate awareness content and train partner delivery teams. Develop website and communication plan. Spring & Summer 2027 delivery: Host public launch and deliver Community Day(s). Deliver water, climate and outdoor activity and CPD sessions. Collect baseline and ongoing impact data. Summer / Autumn 2027 evaluation: Evaluation, impact analysis and community feedback. Create toolkit for scaling. Next stage partnership planning. Evaluation and final reporting.
Capacity-Building Participation and Support Funding: If you were to make it as a finalist, you will be required to participate in an 8-week capacity building programme. If funding/ cost is a barrier to your participation, we may be able to offer up to 10,000 GBP of grant money available to support you. Please break down below, if it is the case, what costs you would incur and you would need covered. (Please note that there are restrictions on how the grant money may be used; please refer to the T&Cs for further details (LINK).
As not for profit organisations support to cover operational costs incurred during bid development is welcomed and will ensure meaningful engagement and participation in the process. If successful, the exact funding would be agreed in advance and be used for: Lead Organisation staff time: Costs of project lead required to develop the proposal and participate meaningfully in the 8-week capacity building programme to ensure we can attend all sessions and complete required actions. Funding ensures that current planned activities can continue to ensure ongoing work with young people is not disrupted. Partner staff time: Costs of project partners to contribute to the proposal development. Funding ensures that current planned activities can continue to ensure ongoing work with young people is not disrupted. Direct Expenses: any direct expenses e.g. travel associated with the capacity building programme. Focus Groups: Participation of young people and community leaders in focus sessions, to fully develop the proposal. A participation voucher would be offered. Pilot workshops: We would deliver pilot session(s) and trial approaches requiring funding for facilitators and to purchase workshop materials and refreshments. We have our own venue within the Park. The partners would use existing infrastructure to support the development e.g. internet, office, laptops etc and support from the wider organisations e.g. management time. A breakdown of costs can be provided once additional information about the time commitment and expectations of the capacity building programme is made available.
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