Forthill Community Sports Club is committed to sustainability and enhancing its facilities to better serve the community. Our proposed solar panel installation, (£22,505 cost), will significantly lower energy costs, allowing us to reinvest savings into sporting programs, outreach, and development. By reducing our carbon footprint, we create a more sustainable future for our members and inspire young athletes to take part in an environmentally conscious sports culture. This initiative strengthens our role as a community hub, promoting both physical well-being and environmental responsibility.

Forthill Community Sports Club is a local hub dedicated to promoting sports and physical activity in the community. Based in Broughty Ferry, Dundee, the club provides facilities for a variety of sports, including cricket, tennis, hockey, squash, rugby and table tennis. It serves a wide range of age groups and skill levels, from beginners to seasoned athletes, and is focused on fostering both sporting excellence and community engagement. In addition to hosting matches and events, Forthill also plays a key role in sports development and outreach, offering programs that encourage active participation, teamwork, and personal growth. The club's inclusive and welcoming environment makes it a vital part of the local sports culture. Our facilities are used by a variety of community groups who are not directly linked to Forthill, and we hope that the financial savings throught this solar project will allow us to open our doors to more groups.

This special initiative will empower young students to connect with the environment through hands-on, food-growing experiences. School children in Eastern Dundee will not only learn the science of planting, growing, and harvesting, but will also develop a deep appreciation for the environment and sustainable living. By running student-led farmers' markets, they’ll gain practical skills in agriculture and business, bringing fresh, healthy produce home to their families. This initiative will also improve school grounds, local greenspaces and biodiversity by buying and planting a diverse school orchard and sustainable vegetable gardens, with the input of the pupils themselves.

This project is more than just teaching children how to grow food—it’s about nurturing the next generation of environmental stewards. Many of these students come from low-income households, and some do not have gardens at home. The school becomes their only opportunity to engage with nature in a meaningful, skills-focused way. By instilling these abilities early, we help cultivate healthier lifestyles and promote self-reliance, all while creating a lasting impact on their communities. The seasonal alignment of Terms 4 and then Term 1 of tha academic years 2024/2025 and 2025/2026 ensures that students experience the full growing cycle, from seed to harvest, making this project a cornerstone for future school-led growing initiatives.

With the support of Dundee Climate Fund, this project will transform the way children view food and sustainability, making their school not just a place of learning but a thriving hub of community-driven resilience and environmental consciousness. These young learners will be equipped to tackle food insecurity and promote healthier futures for generations to come. Our instructors will even show them how to preapre and cook some of their produce on open-fires outdoors! Without this investment, the project simply cannot move forward. 

“We can begin by doing small things at the local level, like planting community gardens or looking out for our neighbours. That is how change takes place in living systems, not from above but from within, from many local actions occurring simultaneously.” Grace Lee Boggs, American author and activist

Art has the power to help us to imagine and inspires action. We are launching a yearlong project to raise awareness of the climate emergency through the creation of a vibrant greenspace at DCA in partnership with community groups from across Dundee.

We will work with a Lead Artist to facilitate a series of workshops with community partners across the city to develop a welcoming greenspace onsite at DCA, which will be open to all and free to access.

We have established relationships Amina Muslim Women’s Resource Centre, Dundee International Women’s Centre (DIWC), Artangel, Maxwell Centre and Dundee Botanics. Through these partnerships, we will involve a diverse cross-section of people, including families and young people, in the co-design of our green space.

We will reach out to local experts to help shape this project, including Grow Dundee, an incredible network of existing food growing and community gardens, Bonnie Dundee, who maintain planters across the city, and Creative Dundee, who worked on various similar community-led projects.

Environmental benefits of this project include:

• Community Engagement: Local communities will lead the creation of a greenspace, ensuring the space is what their community needs. 
• Enhanced Urban Habitat: Promoting biodiversity and supporting ecosystems.
• Improved Air Quality: Through the planting of trees and plants.
• Emissions Offset: Contributing to carbon sequestration.

Further to this, there is robust evidence that integrating green spaces into urban environments enhances mental and physical health, improves wellbeing and aids relaxation.

The greenspace at DCA will provide a welcoming and safe social space in the centre of Dundee, benefiting DCA staff, visitors and local communities. The greenspace will be used for years to come, serving as the site of future workshops and events.

Join us in creating a welcoming, safe, and sustainable greenspace in the heart of Dundee! Thank you for your support.

Scottish Action for Mental Health (SAMH) will deliver a year-long programme of environmental projects and activities at Growing Chrysalis, the community garden in the heart of Dawson Park. Our goal is to give individuals and families from across the region the chance to step outside and reconnect with nature.

Our programme will blend environmental awareness with therapeutic gardening to create a space where people can thrive alongside nature. Families will learn how climate change impacts our greenspaces and local wildlife, gain practical skills to help create a more sustainable future, and improve their wellbeing from being outdoors surrounded by nature.

All our activities will be dynamic and inclusive, tailored to meet the diverse needs of everyone who joins. These will include:

• Green Minds Sessions: Weekly garden-based activities focused on gardening, wildlife, and creativity. Each session ends with time to connect socially, building stronger bonds within the community.
• Local Produce Festivals: Celebrate Tayside’s rich agricultural heritage with events highlighting local produce—potatoes, soft fruits, and berries.
• Recycle Fun Days: Family-friendly events promoting sustainability through fun, hands-on activities using recycled materials.
• Grow Your Own Food Workshops: Practical sessions on sourcing and growing local, seasonal food—from foraging to creating your own food forest.
• Saving Local Wildlife: Learn about the impact of climate change on local wildlife and how to protect our precious wildlife with sessions on growing wildflowers for pollinators, building bat boxes, and creating wormery composts.
• Reducing Food Waste: Sustainable cooking sessions using homegrown produce, held in our outdoor kitchen to strengthen healthy eating and social connections.

Cake or Dice, partnered with NEoN Digital Arts, are looking to run Dundee's only Repair and Share cafe, as a current member  of Scotland's Share and Repair network. Repair Cafés are meeting places and they’re all about repairing things. In Cake or Dice, where the Repair Café will be located, you will find folk who can help, and tools and materials to help you make any repairs you need. We hope to be able to repair clothes, small tech, bicycles, jewellery, appliances, and toys! 

You’ll also find expert volunteers, with repair skills in all kinds of fields. We are lucky to have volunteers that are small tech specialists, crafters, jewellery makers, seamstresses, knitters, 3d printer technicians, and many more. We will alternate who will be available monthly, with information going out on socials and a newsletter. If you have nothing to repair, you can come in and have a blether, enjoy a cup of tea or coffee, or even a slice of cake. You can also get inspired at our lending library, where you can pick up books, zines or even board games! 

Our first pilot cafe will run on Saturday 19th October, and will be a partnership between Cake or Dice, NEoN and Dundee MakerSpace.  After the pilot, we would like to run a session monthly. 

We would therefore like to hire a part-time staff member to help deliver the following:

• • A repair and share cafe once a month

  • Admin and coordination of volunteers

  • A new weekly conversation space, 

  • Support and learning of MyTurn, creating a tools library between Cake or Dice, NEoN Digital Arts and other partnerships in the Creative hub, that Cake or dice have created. 

  • This funding will also support the tools library, plus initial material costs. 

Repairs cafes are good for the environment as they reduce waste, promote recycling and reduce carbon emissions. They also help reduce electronic waste, hopefully prolonging the life of technology. We hope that it will also save money, plus empower our community to be more confident in their own skills, and start on their own sustainable journey. 

We have been fortunate enough in to attend the Share and Repair gathering in February 2024, and have been supported so far in setting up our repair cafe infrastructure by members and other repair cafes. We are so excited to be able to bring this to Dundee, and hope you are able to join us on this journey! 

Positive collaboration is the key to climate action.

To address climate change we need to think and work in more creative ways and engage people from all walks of life. At the same time we need to nurture and celebrate the people who are volunteering and working in this sector who are often overwhelmed and anxious about not doing enough. This is why we will be focusing on community green spaces or growing spaces across Dundee.

This project brings together two Dundee-based collectives in collaboration.  The Art and Nature Collective, based at Dundee Botanic Gardens and the Dundee Network of Community Gardens (aka Grow Dundee) to deliver 5 artist mini-residencies hosted by the community gardens, bringing together artists and community growers.

Please support our project so we can:

1.       Support learning and increase the confidence of smaller community environmental initiatives and environmentally engaged artists to work together in all areas of our city

2.       Offer interactive creative and caring nature-based activities within community growing spaces - new ways for communities to connect with nature and engage with environmental action

3.       Increase visibility and impact of both of our environmental networks to engage more people in sustainable living through art, community growing and UoD Botanic Gardens. We are all here for the long run!

4.       Publish a small guide to creative and caring practices for sustainable community food growing. Multiply the impact of nature restoration and sustainable food growing activities in community settings by being more inclusive and creative

Real change demands swift, comprehensive action across entire systems. "Creative Gardens" will connect communities, with nature and art in a positive and productive way to highlight the critical need for collaboration between all areas of society; producing inspiring examples of successful partnerships to help drive positive change.

Kanzen is a registered charitys committed to not only building better lives but also to making a positive impact on the environment. With our new initiative to introduce an electric vehicle, we aim to significantly reduce our carbon footprint and contribute to a greener, more sustainable future. This will help us cut harmful emissions, reduce reliance on fossil fuels, and set a strong example for other organisations in the community. It will also support us to remove barriers by providing accesible transport to those who need it. 

As well as reducing our carbon emmissions, an electric vehicle would also help us save money which we can then repurpose back into our charitable activities. 

Kanzen is an award winning charity and we are the current Dundee Social Enterprise of the Year, Dundee Sports Club of the Year and winners of The Courier Business Awards for Community Impact. 

We organised the first carbon neutral martial arts event in Europe and are proud to be an organisation rooted in the community. 

GROW DUNDEE (Dundee Network of Community Growers) and the BIG GROW projects want to continue to make food growing (and cooking!) more accessible to everyone in Dundee, multiplying the opportunities for people in every neighbourhood. 

See our network and events on growdundee.blog and more info about the Maxwell Centre work and the Big Grow on maxdundee.org.uk

We are asking for funding to cover one annual salary so our team can continue to support learning and sharing opportunities across these 2 new and very successful community initiatives to address local climate justice through growing and cooking food, supporting biodiversity and climate-friendly gardens and green spaces across our city.

Each of the 30+ community food growing space in our city as well as 100+ family, community or school growing spaces will benefit from all the garden and wildlife resources, partnerships, training, events, joined fundraising and more. The project officer will organise or deliver:

• Community growers networking gatherings every two months at different community gardens across the city
• A programme of workshops and events to learn and make our work more visible for more engagement at each neighbourhood – keep community growers updated with good practice and opportunities for sustainable gardening and support to keep their community groups running.
• Updates of the GROW DUNDEE website so Dundonians know where all community gardens are, how to join to volunteer or for activities as well as tips and advice on sustainable suppliers etc. a live chat, phone and in person advice.
• Facilitation of partnership projects with over 15 environmental and community partners to enable access of community gardens to resources, support and funding (for example free fruit tree or bushes, help with composting, building ponds, etc.)
• Expansion of the network to include schools that are growing food
• Establishment of biodiversity hubs in neighbourhoods through community growing spaces and regular Bio blitzes

DUNDEE THE BIG GROW would also be supported by our staff for the next growing season, signing up 100 families, community groups or schools. Some new to growing, some having started recently to learn, grow, cook and share in their community. They will benefit from a community learning programme that includes training in growing, cooking and biodiversity through workshops, newsletters, videos, events, tool borrowing, free seeds and seedlings as well as one-to-one tailored advice for their growing space. 

The grant will be used to fund a Support Worker and associated activities, to enable Carers of Dundee’s vision and action of what climate change means to them. This proposal will engage with unpaid Carers across Dundee and deliver a project that supports Carers and their families, friends & local community to take part in climate change action. The project will run from 1st May – 31st Oct 2025.

There will be a series of events, outings & workshops with local community organisations, using local green and blue spaces. The project will be delivered in 3 stages:

1. 3 clean-up events over different terrains and environments - Beach, Woodland & River.
2. Art creation - Reduce, Recycle, Reuse –using the waste products to create an art piece.
3. Celebration event - to showcase the full project. Increasing public awareness, engage the wider community.

The workshops will focus on use of renewables, encouraging active travel, reusing resources and thus reducing waste. The outings we propose will ensure the Carers benefit from green space in the city and encourage them to grow in their own home environment which will work towards building increased awareness in the climate change agenda.

In addition to the climate benefits, this 6 month project will alleviate isolation, increase social connectivity within Carers own locality as well as City wide and enhance health & wellbeing which is a detrimental factor for all Carers.

The basis of this project has come directly from Carers who were given the opportunity to explore this topic during research conducted by Dr Kate Miller. Carers felt they were currently not well involved with Climate change largely due to barriers in existing opportunities to get involved. Carers said they would like to take part in something that would benefit the wider community as well as improve their personal health and wellbeing.

Abertay University Students' Association has been operating Abertaysty since 2019, and in the last academic year we provided 1705.6kgs of food to 1023 users (1.6kg per user on average) .  We currently only offer ambient food, as we do not have space for refrigeration.  However, we are moving to a custom designed space in December of this year and will then be able to widen our offering to students.  We work with Fareshare as our supplier, ensurng that we employ the principles of circular economy.  We would like to use monies from the fund to increase the amount we have available to widen our provision to chilled and frozen foods, to both help the students, and to collaborate on the prevention of food wste. Moving forward we would like to expand the larder to include a not-for-profit refill station, both to widen the offering, but also to encourage students to engage in more sustainble shopping practices.  To this end we would request funding to purchase the equipment needed, and the first purchase of goods to stock the station.

We also use Abertaysty to highlight other sustainable initiatives being promoted by the Association, the university and the wider community, and to provide access to information and guidance on how to live more sustainably.