How a seed of an idea has blossomed: The community bringing the Growing Up Green Festival to families in Stourbridge and Brierley Hill

The Growing Up Green Festival returns on 1oth-18th June. It brings an enormous range of events and activities that celebrate action on climate change to people of all ages. From two big launch events in Stourbridge and Brierley Hill on Saturday 10th June to an activity-packed closing event at Hawbush Community Gardens on 18th, the activities on offer are all thanks to local people and groups who’ve come together to make everything happen. And it’s been an absolute pleasure to work with them again and to welcome new people to the Growing Up Green community!

Growing Up Green Festival

Growing Up Green is a children and family arts festival that ran across Birmingham and parts of the Black Country in 2021, led by The Parakeet Studio. Each year the festival coincides with Great Big Green Week and it was brought to Stourbridge for the first time last year. What started as a modest goal between me and Hayley (who’s a resident, community arts facilitator and founder member of Wild About Stourbridge) to reach into our networks and curate a festival of at least 5 activities, was embraced by so many people that we had around 20 events last year which reached around 400 people. This year, the number of events has skyrocketed to at least 30!

So what’s going on?

Stourbridge and Brierley Hill are focal points for the festival this year, though there are other events happening in Quarry Bank, Halesowen and Coseley.

The range of activities is mind-boggling; there’ll be eco crafts, creative writing for adults, a sustainable fashion show, nature walks and loads more! There are two large launch events at Mary Stevens Park Stourbridge (11am-2pm) and in Brierley Hill (11am-3pm) around the market hall, the High Street and St Michael’s Church. There’ll be a range of activities at each event for you to get involved in and the launches will showcase some of the other activities happening throughout the rest of the week.

For a full timetable of events and activities for the whole week, visit growingup.green/db and you can get involved in the Facebook group too!

Our place-based work

It’s been (and remains) an absolute joy to play a part in this work that has sprung out of our new approach to working in smaller localities across Dudley borough.

Through our place-based working, we bring together local people who are passionate about their communities. Place-based working is all about people doing great things and nurturing strong connections rooted in communities.

If you’d like to understand more about how my work in Stourbridge led to last year’s Growing Up Green Festival, please take a look at this short document that brings everything together.

Stourbridge by Becky Pickin

Get involved

I’d love to hear from anyone who has an idea (however big or small) for the Stourbridge area. Bringing people together around Growing Up Green has shown us that we can achieve much more when we make connections, and share our ideas and resources openly. Please get in touch if you’d like to get involved in Growing Up Green or if you’ve ideas for the Stourbridge area. Email me on becky@dudleycvs.org.uk