During the October half-term, young women from our Girls Win programme wanted to give back to their local community, so 10 young women decided to litter pick in the local parks near our HQ in Wallington. Our Girls Win programme partner, Investec, kindly donated free litter pickers, gloves and grow your own seed starter packs. Despite the wet weather conditions, the young women were full of energy and extremely motivated to make a positive difference in their local community. They were astonished with the amount of litter around the park and the variety of items that were found.
Whilst completing the litter pick, a group of local dog walkers applauded the young women for their efforts in the pouring rain, with one of them saying “Well done everyone!” She later went on to say, “The skin is waterproof, and you are all doing an amazing job.”
In the afternoon, the group returned to the TCF HQ and were donated seed starter kits to decorate. Whilst decorating the pots, the young women discussed sustainability, plastic pollution and created a personal goal to help the environment within their own lives and community. Some examples are “no single use plastics”, “to stop littering” and “to eat less meat”.
The day ended with the young women sharing their experiences, what they have learned and the actions they are going to take into their every-day life. One participant shared her experience of the day saying, “it was really good, and I had fun with all my friends. We were picking litter because there was a lot of rubbish and bottles behind buildings and in the trees, it’s not nice, we need to make it clean so people can hang out there”.
Our coach mentor Elle said “I am extremely impressed with the girl’s determination and motivation on the day, despite the adverse weather conditions. Seeing the young women’s faces brighten up, when they cleared the park of litter, was such an achievement. The positive energy from the young women on the day was contagious. We are all so thankful to Investec for donating the supplies to assist in making the day happen”.
Simone from our Girls Win programme partner, Investec, said:
“We are very excited to be able to support the girls to take part in #Trashtag as part of the Girls Win Green Activity Day. It offers a great opportunity for the girls to reconnect with nature, help tackle plastic pollution in their local community and continue to be active in the outdoors. Reducing plastic consumption has been at the forefront of a number of internal education, awareness raising and volunteering initiative, so we are really pleased to be able to expand the initiatives out to our community partners.”
To find out more information about our Girls Win programme, please contact Maddy Ford.
