Young people and families in North Glasgow have taken on the challenges of Climate Change focussing on areas of waste, recycling and re-use, and energy.

ng homes’ Climate Challenge project – ‘Embedding North Glasgow’s Green Legacy’ works across the North Glasgow community and operates a variety of projects including the following: a furniture and food recycling project and local redistribution centre, a pop-up community swap shop, and upcycling and energy efficiency activities.

The Young Green Champions group was formed with the young people investigating their eco issues and looking at creative ways to get the message across. One of their activities included fun and creative workshops with Rossie Stone, founder of Dekko Comics. The idea of creating their own comic book was really exciting and they came up with their own drawings and designs and explored concepts around the ‘Blue Planet’ programme that highlighted the impact of plastics and other items in the oceans.

The result of their workshops was a fantastic colourful comic book with really important messages that has been distributed to local schools. The ‘Young Green Champions Comic Book’ was launched by the young people at a large celebration event at Keppoch Campus in supported by their parents and other older members of the community who also had their ideas included in the comic book.

The project allowed those taking part to be imaginative and resourceful.

The Climate Challenge Fund Awards Panel said: “The Awards Panel were impressed by the combination of ways this project worked with and involved young people, giving them a forum to learn more about climate change and to develop creative ways to help tackle it.”

The comic strip workshops are now being delivered with other young people within schools and throughout the community.

Rossie Stone said: “Visual entertainment has so much potential not only to grab the attention of young readers, but get them involved too. It’s been a wonderful experience working with the children of the North Glasgow community on this project.”

John Thorburn, chair of ng homes, added: “ng homes is delighted to receive this important award. We are committed to working on issues of Climate Change and we applaud the wonderful work of these young people and others who have contributed to this comic strip. This creative approach really gets the message across. We look forward to seeing them and other young people continuing with this important work.”