Radio Harrow's Amrita spoke to Susan, from Parents For Future. They discuss the importance of climate action and take us on a tour of their most recent street party. To find out more, visit parentsforfuture.org.uk.
Radio Harrow
Interview | Parents For Future
I'm here on Saturday the 21st of September on a beautiful sunny day. A few clouds but it's still beautiful. And it's the parents' hall of the future, West London event. So I'm going to speak to Susan who is the organizer and she's going to tell us all about it. Hello, thanks for having me. Can you tell me who parents for future are? So parents for future are a group of parents who got together a very small group in 2019 concerned about their kids' future. And since then has grown into a very big national organization with 35 local groups, we are West London's one of those 35 groups. And as a collective, we are a group of parents who are concerned about the future that our children are going to inherit due to the climate crisis. We're going to have hope and know that if we all come together and act and do our best and raise our voice in the community and in our other social groups that we're in, we can make an impact and we can really show governments and corporations and politicians and all of those who seemingly don't care about children's future is that we need deliverable future for our children. And what is your most important key issues that you feel on being addressed by the people who should be addressing it? So I think there's a number of them. The first is that we know from the IPCC reports that there is no future for fossil fuels for oil and gas. And we know that we can't extract any more oil and gas if we want to stay within the 1.5 degree limit as that was agreed to the Paris agreement. We are concerned when we see our government the licensing of new oil and gas fields to extract new oil and gas. We know that the science is irrefutable and that we have to do all we can to stop them. We will stop them and what's the IPPC? So the intergovernmental panel on climate change, there are UN body who really support every few years on the state of the climate. And what do you feel the impact of not doing anything is having on children that you're so concerned? I mean it's just so bad and bold. It's a nightmare scenario that is potentially every parent's worst nightmare. We know that for every degree, every half the degree of warming that we are baking in irreversible climate breakdown into our children's future. And it's not just our children. There are children around the world at the moment, at the forefront of the climate crisis. And they can seem very far away from what's here in West London and it is. But a sense of climate justice is what we add to the case as well. On top of being aware that none of us will escape this and that drought, extreme peace, food shortages and conflicts like we're seeing at the moment in many places around the world is only going to intensify if we don't talk on this issue head on. Okay so today I'm here on the street built in road and there are a number of stalls. So how does this event come about? So the Council, Ealing Council put out a funding call last year for local community organisations to hold street parties. It's part of the Mayor of London, the UK Prosperity Fund that cancels then micro-granted to local organisations. So we applied for that and we received funding for it. I would like you to have many stall holders with us today. Ealing front of the earth, Ealing Repair Cafe, the circular education hub, City Harvest, Ealing Transition. So they've all joined us today to be part of this event funded by the Council. Parents for Future West London took the lead in organising it. So everything you see here today has been organised by us and we've run other events like this quite regularly. For example what have you done? What have you done in the past and what are you planning in the future? We do a variety of things and we believe that for somebody who is part of a parent for future that there is no one way to be a climate activist. I mean if it protests and marching on the streets it's your comfort area then fine but for most people it isn't. There's so many other ways that you can get involved in climate action. So we do things like creating petitions, circulating them and bringing them to politicians, emailing MPs, having events for MPs to tell them our concerns. And everything from that to events like today which is just a very joyous family friendly celebration of the local community and the power of the local community and everything in between. So having picked their, having crafting events. So there's a social side to those as much as an activist. Absolutely. Yeah. I joined parent through theatre when my children were quite small and I was, my mental health was very much suffering at that time thinking about the future, their future and there was something about bringing new life into the world and thinking about a new time trajectory and what that would mean for them. And doing in a group like this and being involved with series important but very fulfilling bond, joyful activity like this has really been a tonic to my, to my anxiety and climate anxiety and my mental health. And it's genuinely just so much fun and you meet so many people you make incredible friends. And do you get the children involved as well? Yeah, yeah. I'm just in a social side but in the activity. No, absolutely. So all of our activism, even when we do do marches and protests, our family friendly, we believe that and there's space in social movements and climate movements for families to get involved. My kids love us. They love engaging with this. We always have a very fun family element to it. So it's, it's great fun. So what's next after today? Yes. So we were, earlier we had James Murray or MP here along with some of our politicians, Paul Driscoll, who's a climate lead in healing council. We're very excited to be working with them. Particularly Paul going forward with a few issues like school streets, making sure that there is, um, portions of the roads are closed down while the kids are going to school, getting stuck in with some very local issues that are concerned to parents. And also just keeping an eye on our lobbying and our advocacy to know new oil and gas. There is a oil field that was likely by the last government, Rosebank, that we were very much in our eye at the moment. In October, we're going to be concentrating on that and making sure that this new government in no way supports the opening of that oil field. So are you involved with the action and the climate and nature bill that's going? Yes. Absolutely. Yes. Yes. We are, we are collaborating with zero hours well to make sure that all of our MPs here in West London, but another local group around the country are aware of the climate bill or aware that we as parents and local communities here behind us. We believe they should be with it too. So yeah, that's very much in our sights as well. And how many members do you have? So on a national level, we have quite a lot. So we say that has a local level where parents and future West London were across all of the boroughs. We have about 100 members, but we're growing steadily. And how was the criteria for recruiting? Absolutely nothing. The only criteria is that you have to be a parent concerned about your child's future and willing to do something. And as parents, the lovely thing about parents for a future is that we understand that being a parent is really far is that, you know, it's never one climate activism to be just one more thing on your to-do list. And some of us don't have bandwidth for it. Some of us don't have actual time for it. But the beauty of parents for a future is that if we could all use the small pockets of time we have, and there's enough of us, we can actually make it genuine change. So the only criteria is that you're a concerned parent and you're willing to come and see what you can do and explore what you can do. Those tiny nuggets of time that you get just give them to us. And it will be a very nourishing, fulfilling experience. Our adult children as well included. Absolutely. Yes, we have, well we have everything from new parents. So parents who've just on our clothes and toys off today, we had a lovely mom who with her three month olds live in a sling. And then we have all the way through to parents of teenagers and adults. And we have quite a lot of grandparents as well, lots of grandparents with us as well, including my own mother who steps up and like signs with child parents. That's activism as well, you know, it really is. In the background, there's much to do. Yeah, thank you very much for that. Thank you. So let's do a walk and you can sort of talk around what's happening and you know what you're trying to achieve here. Sure, yeah, yeah, that's fine. This is different local Indian food restaurants who've just opened and they've kindly come to K through today with their lovely Indian food. So it's great to be in Perryville where you have so much variety of foods that we can bring to. So you're like sort of multicultural as well. Absolutely, very important, you know. And also local, it seems. Local, absolutely, yeah. We were so thanks for all the local businesses that's more to us today. And here we kind of have the kids corners. So we've got crafting going on. We're making a mural, a tree mural, we've got face painting, coloring. And we see planting out the bath there along with the place to sit and relax. We have a book corner over here where kids can relax and read the book. Excellent. And when you say seeds, what are the purpose of the seeds? Just all seeds, just to show growth and renewal. Yeah, so getting children reconnected to nature is very important as well from getting children to love nature and be attached to it. And also the mental health benefits that comes from that I think is a very important thing. This is a general tent where you can find all the information on parents' future. And finally, with me for you, if you did want to join us, there's lots of examples of the kind of things that we do and we get involved with. So anyone can come and visit us here and have a chat as the... If you're training for people who want to join, don't know much about it. Yeah, we do lots of trainings. We've got the parents' future UKs or a natural group. And have a call every Wednesday night, quite often not as training on all things climate, all things activism, and all the kind of intersectional issues that go with that as well. And this is our close and twice walk. And so we believe that as parents, you know, you have to buy so many clothes for your kids all the time. They're constantly demanding toys and just buying new stuff all the time isn't sustainable. So here we've encouraged people to come along and bring clothes and toys that their kids don't use anymore but could be really useful to somebody else and to take away something that their kids would enjoy. So we're now constantly. And also they grow out of them so quickly so they're also doing some of the clothes. Absolutely. My kids grow so much. It's okay if you've got lots of children you can pass it down but it doesn't always happen. Exactly. So that's the end of our or part of this and this is all the store folder that I've joined us. So this is circular education hub and they are launching their Nappy Library today. I have to I think and it is to draw attention to and help parents who want to make the move to reusable lapis. And the idea of the library is to well maybe Kinga could explain it for us as we go by but you got this one. Yeah yeah yeah. And so we're next to all the friends of the earth. Ealing we work with them quite a lot. They're a great group. They're on the same wavelength with us in terms of climate action and they need to lobby for these new oil and gas fields not to be open. I think they've got to sign the series that end to UN sport for fossil fuels. They've got a really cool game for kids to play today. Can you reach that zero? So they're doing great work and engaging the kids in today as well. This is our lovely Ealing Repair Cafe with Mary. If she's won an award recently so I'll talk to her about that. Yes that's it. And so we love Ealing Repair Cafe. They teach people who are interested to come along and to repair their clothes because we know that the less new fast fashion we combine if we just repair our clothes and reuse this with that in itself can make such a massive impact. Because skills are dying state. People don't know how to prepare and mend and yeah craft ideas. No it's so important. And it's actually so lovely to sit down and just you know mend something or make something. I find that very relaxing. The knitting and nutters. Yeah we used to do that as a kid and I kind of grew out of it but I am getting back into it now yeah. And this is the Ealing Transition Act for Ealing who coordinate a lot of the sustainability movements across the borough so they're running an information store to say and all the different things that they're doing. They work in a restore nature, community action. I love that you've got on the pavement in chalk. Yeah yeah yeah yeah. And this is Mum for Lungs who do wonderful campaigns and we work with them quite a lot. So they mainly focus on air pollution which is so important in London especially in the suburbs in West London. They campaign on air pollution, clean air for kids and having school streets around schools so that when you're dropping off and picking up your kids that the road is closed down. So my kids have that at their school. That's genuinely such a nice thing to walk your kids to school. That traffic is a big cause. If you and have a lot of the schools involved in this sort of weekend. Yes we do. Yeah we engage quite a lot of the school. We're all parents so it just comes naturally that we do. We have the schools involved. And on our last whole there is City Harvest. So City Harvest is one of the biggest contributors to missions is food waste. 8% of UK emissions is food waste. So City Harvest is a wonderful organization that collects food that would be considered wasteful but is actually quite reusable and redistributed. So it has the double army of helping to curb those emissions from food waste as well as bringing really reusable food to people who need it the most. Absolutely. So thank you for all the tools going on and finally what music would you like us to play for you. Oh goodness we have one other main speaker and one of our lovely volunteers Anna has made green playlists. She's got some wonderful songs with us. None come to mind but I can I'll go and talk to her. I'll have some of them. Thank you so much. Well thank you.