Last week our co-founder Olga Terebenina attended a conference in London organised by Natural England. This year’s focus was on diversity and inclusivity.
It was great to hear talks from different charities and organisations helping people from various backgrounds. The speakers included Bees and Refugees, Kosovar Albanian Youth Against Violence, Kingston Association For the Blind, Guardians Worldwide, and also a Braille pot tags workshop by Seeds for Growth.
Some of the topics shared were making nature-related work more accessible to people from different communities, the importance of accessibility, working closely with communities, and understanding individual needs, as well as the needs of communities.
It was an extremely helpful conference. We are very grateful to Laura Brown and the Natural England team for organising it, and we are looking forward to next year’s conference! For those who are interested, Natural England is also organising a Happier Outdoors Festival 2025 from the 7th until the 16th of April.
The conference is for those living in Greater London who want to experience nature-based activities and explore London’s wild spaces, and is free to attend. You can find more information, including the events calendar, locations, and how to register here.
Part of the work we do at TFBI is delivering funded forest bathing sessions (that are free to participants) to the vulnerable members of society as part of a green social prescribing project (did you know that forest bathing is on the green social prescribing list in Surrey, UK?) In the past, some of our partners included mental health charities, including Mind, Catalyst, and Mary Frances Trust, and charities helping refugees and young homeless people.
In TFBI, we believe that access to nature is everyone’s right and place great importance on the projects working with local communities and organisations, as well as local governments and the NHS, in helping to deliver forest bathing and nature connection sessions to the most vulnerable members of society.
It was an invaluable conference, and we are very grateful to Laura Brown and the Natural England team for organising it and to all the speakers and organisations attending for contributing to the shared cause of making nature and nature-based practices more accessible to people across different communities.
We are looking forward to the conference next year!