Mother’s Hour – Hope For Our Future

Hello and welcome to Mothers Hour with me, Carolyn Van Beers here on women's radio station. Today's show is Hope for Our Future. It's the second in our series on mothers and climate change. We are asking how is it impacting you as mums and how do you feel about your children's future? I must say thank you very much for all your emails from our previous show. When Mothers Rise up came on. It was clear that. Clear that you are all quite worried and anxious like me and feeling quite overwhelmed by it. But like my guest today, you are keen to act and make positive changes. So what can us mums do to tackle the climate emergency? My three guests today are three mums who have chosen to do just that. Take action against climate breakdown. Bel Jacobs, welcome to the show. Writer and speaker on climate change, animal rights and ethical fashion. We also have Sandra Frey, a fashion and advertising photographer and one of the founders of Parents for Future. Welcome to the show. Hello. Thank you. And finally we have Beth. Mark and Beth also helps set up Parents for Future and is a mum of the Future, a new first time mum and founder of goecobaby, which is an environmentally conscious parenting blog looking at ways to reduce, reuse, recycle and repurpose. And we're going to be talking a lot about that with you later on in the show. Welcome to the show, Beth. Thank you very much. So, ladies, first of all, thank you so much for coming on the show, giving up your time and talking us through your journeys, because they are. Well, I mean, I'm in awe. I'm inspired by all of you. You've definitely taken action. But I am going to start with Bel because you have quite an important meeting to go to. The all party Parliamentary group is a meeting organised by the Fashion Roundtable, is that right? Yes, that's absolutely right. It's a group of representatives from different aspects of the fashion industry coming together today to specifically talk about solutions on transforming the fashion industry as it is, which is this incredibly polluting, destructive machine into something that can possibly provide regeneration and repair. Brilliant. I mean, that is really. Bel, what I really want to talk to you about today is your passion for ethical fashion and the enormous damage that fast fashion is having on our planet in so many ways. And I think so many mums who are listening right now are a bit confused, they are a bit frightened and they're not sure whether we can do anything about it. So I'm so glad you're here. But before we start your journey, like the way you are on activist is quite radical. You were actually the former fashion editor of Metro magazine. Big fashion shoes there. Why did you choose to give that all up? Well, I weirdly started off in environmental journalism and I was then offered this job on Metro newspaper which had just started. And it's a difficult job to say no to. I loved clothes, I loved fashion genuinely as a way of expressing and play and creativity. But I think it was partly because of my role in the Metro newspaper where you working every day on basically what was turning out to be excess. I would get about 1,000 emails a day, all of them trying to get some position in the paper to sell product that I started to realize we really don't need. So there was a deep unease definitely within the last five or six years of my job that things were not right. And there were more and more stories about the environment. Not so many stories about fashion's impact on it, not as many as you'd think. But the turning point for me and so many other people in the fashion industry was the fall of rana Plaza where 1,134 people died making cheap fashion for western markets. And the images and the stories that came out of that were enough to make a fair few of us in the fashion industry sit up and go wait. Some of the products that we're writing about are from labels that are appearing from those images from Rana Plaza. And I think for anyone in the industry who had a bit of a conscience and was worried it, it was a time to step back and reassess. I left very soon after. When was that? It was about. Well, Rana Plaza fell in April, I think. I left in May. A lot of factors came together to make it possible for me to leave as we spoke about. But it was a cultural turning point. Yeah, I mean where we are today, fast fashion is the second biggest pollutant, more than aviation and shipping combined, which is such a startling figure and really way bigger than you know, any of us really thought. And yet there's a whole generation out there of 15, 16 year olds, 17, 18 year old girls who all they've known is shopping in these fast fashion outlets. And I'm not even going to name them because I don't want them to have time on this show. And so we have to retrain these, well, children, these growing adults into rethinking the way they shop because they haven't known anything else, have they? No, they haven't. You're absolutely right. And so what do you think? I mean you're doing quite a lot. Can you Talk about some of the things that you are doing. You have two websites, so talk me through your websites and. Yes, well, I will talk about the websites and then I'll go on to talk about my role with Extinction Rebellion. Boycott Fashion, because that probably is the most current. The first website was set up after I left Metro to purely talk about sustainable fashion. You know, the options to the high streets that weren't damaging the planet, that were people paying people properly, that were looking at things like energy use and pollution and waste. The other website, which is called how now magazine, is broad. It looks at issues from climate change to how we need to shift agriculture to animal rights, which is obviously a big thing for me, to how we speak to our children about climate change. It's a very broad reaching website which probably makes it a bit difficult to handle. But in the last sort of eight months I've been involved with Extinction Rebellion. Boycott Fashion. Like Extinction Rebellion, it is there to make big asks of the fashion industry in light of the fact that we are in a climate emergency. And one of the things that we find ourselves talking most about when we go out in our roles as spokespeople for this campaign is that we hold the climate emergency in mind. If you can hold just how severe that climate emergency is, you find that people start to come on board with the suggestions. We find that the people who fight hardest haven't really grasped how urgent the situation is. The UN, the United nations has given us, well, gave us 12 years, now it's probably 11 to try and get to net zero calm, which involves a huge restructuring of all the systems as they stand. Absolutely. So we are under a massive deadline and if I felt a sense of urgency before being a mum and knowing that if I don't take action my child could grow up into a very, very dangerous and life threatening situation. Very grief stricken. You know, it gives me impetus every day to make these big ass and to put myself into positions that genuinely five years ago I wouldn't have thought I would, you know, I've with the Boycott Fashion. Us are former fashion insiders, stylists, fashion editors and we are now speaking to colleagues and incredibly former colleagues in incredibly challenging ways. And I will leave this interview and go out into exactly that situation in the all party parliamentary group. These are people that we must have, might have worked with in some capacity in the past to promote fashion and now we're using them, asking them to use their platforms in different ways. I mean, I want to just rewind just slightly. So Extinction Rebellion is one of the grassroots groups promoting climate change and this boy, the extinction rebellion. Boycott Fashion, because I follow you on Instagram is a group that has sprung up with mainly people who are ex fashion editors and you know, people in the fashion business. But obviously anyone can follow you and join and if you. That's there. So when did, when did you start? When was the. So we start, I mean, I think boycott fashion started February 2019 and I came on board pretty soon after that. And yeah, we make big asks. Tell me about them. Tell me about somebody else. Because this is exciting because you have made. Yes, you know, it's not just a group just talking. You've made some really big changes. So, so the first, the first campaign that we created was we asked people to boycott, to stop buying all new clothing and textiles for a year. And so we didn't decided not to do a month or six weeks, we decided to ask them to do it for a year. And we felt that that again was an accurate reflection of the climate emergency. And the most recent campaign was to ask the British Fashion Council to cancel London Fashion Week because we felt very strongly that London Fashion Week as it exists, where you have, you know, thousands of people flying in from different parts of the world to watch a parade of new fashion, which we genuinely don't need any more new clothes on the planet, seemed to be very out of alignment with what was happening in to the planet. So we made that, created that campaign just to go back a little bit. So when you ask people to not buy, you know, new fashion for a year, what was the reaction? Yes, we genuinely did receive a lot of challenge from different parts of the industry, from some organizations that we may have that we still regard as like minded but at a slightly different stage in the journey. What we have learned is that you propose something radical, you stand firm in the inevitable backlash and then you watch people slowly come on board. And it's happened twice now with both campaigns. That was pretty much how it worked. And we're just about to go to some messages and before you go to your big meeting, if there's any mums out there that are listening, what would you say is the best thing that they could do to get on board and stop feeling so much angst, you know, about the fashion fast fashion situation. I mean the fast fashion. When you say fast fashion, I mean I directly link it to the climate emergency. I mean genuinely inform yourself. It still takes me back how many people may be on board with the climate emergency, have no idea of fashion's impact. I would say Reduce all purchasing if possible. Even sustainable fashion is. It's wonderful, but we cannot buy our way out of this crisis. We were sometimes accused of being very alarm and depressing in our messaging. We're not in fact, if anything, but because what we were saying is no new clothing and textiles. Reuse what you already have. Learn to make, learn to connect with where your clothes are and it can be very exciting. It's very exciting, very joyful. And join a grassroots group like yourself. It's fundamental. Yes. You can't do it on your own. Yeah, lovely. That's perfect. Okay, we're going to talk a little bit more to our other two mums in just a minute after these short messages. How fast does it go? Welcome to Women's Radio Station. I'm Sarah Louise Ryan and welcome to Love Lessons live on Women's Radio Station. Hello and welcome to future Classic Women Awards with me, Stefania Passamonte on Women's Radio station. Hello and welcome to Julie Mae is listening. Hi, this is Anna Kennedy and we're at Women's Radio Station supporting women's well being and we're talking all things autism women. The possibilities are endless. That's what makes us different. Hi, I'm Lauren Mishkon. I'm a birth doula and mum of three and I'm passionate about supporting women to have empowering and positive birth experiences. Please join me for my brand new show From Tummy to Mummy here on Women's Radio Station. Every week I'll be here with an expert guest talking about women's reproductive health, everything, fertility, pregnancy, birth and baby related, right through to the menopause and beyond. Please join us for an informative and fun hour. Hello, my name is Ingrid Marsh on Women's Radio Station and coming soon is the Radical Wellbeing show to help support women's wellbeing. Each show I share the airwaves with ordinary women like me and you doing extraordinary things. 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At Nurturing Birth we offer approved doula training courses across the UK which are facilitated by an award winning doula. Here you will learn more about the support you can offer, explore the doula role and think about how to set up your business. No need for previous qualifications. Find out more at nurturingbirth.co.uk. Com you're listening to Women's Radio Station supporting women's well being. Women's Radio Station is creating a global network for the empowerment of women and we want you to be involved. Join us on Instagram and Twitter womensradio Station, that's womensradio stn or Facebook Women's Radio Station to keep up to date with all our exciting programmes. Welcome back to Mother's Hour with me. Carolyn Van Beers in the studio with me we have the wonderful Beth Mark, who's from Eco Baby. Mum. No, no go Eco Baby. I'll get it right in a minute. We're going to be talking to you in just a few minutes about that. And also Sandra Frey, who is a fashion and advertising photographer but also one of the founders of Parents for Future. This is the second in our series on mothers and climate change. We just want to give you mums some kind of solidarity. We want to talk about this. It's important for you to talk about it because I know so many mums. You're anxious, you're overwhel you feel like what's going on? Is it too big? You know, can we make a change? And we're going to talk about it and yes, we can. What can us mums do to tackle the climate emergency? So, oh yes, don't forget to email me carolinemensradiostation.com Carolineomensradiostation.com so, Sandra, welcome to the show. Thank you for being with us. Thank you very, very good to be here. Tell me a little bit about yourself. I'm Sandra and I am a mother of three young girls. I'm originally from Sweden but I've lived in the UK for about 20 years and I work as a photographer, primarily within advertising and fashion. And you were one of the people who started Parents for Future in the uk, which is a group set up to help parents. We should talk about it in a minute. Tell me a little bit about where it all started. This journey for me started last summer in Sweden. The summer of 2018. We were going back to Sweden for the summer, like we often do, and when we arrived there in the end of July, we basically landed in a country which had no green grass and which was ravaged by bush fires. It had been the driest summer on record and Sweden hadn't had any rain since March. Several months without any rains. So where we live, we live in the middle of the woods. So my parents live in the middle of the woods, surrounded by kilometers of pine trees. And there's no communal water, so everyone is relying on a well. Well, this summer the water ran out and we found ourselves having to take showers or wash in the lake, which wasn't such a bad thing. You know, summer was beautiful, but then one afternoon we looked at the sky and the sky was gray and pink and full of heavy smoke. The, you know, there was a strong smell of bushfire smoke and your eyes just watered by being outside. And in that situation, immediately start calling the emergency services. It took us about 40 minutes to get through because everyone was calling. And I think during those 40 minutes, I spent those 40 minutes trying to figure out what road would be safe to use, when to evacuate. There's only two roads going away from my parents little cottage in the forest. And I just didn't know. I found myself thinking the safest thing would be going on the boat into the middle of the lake with the kids, you know, and it was a bit of a. Bit of a. Well, I didn't realize it then, but it changed something in me. And I think, you know, growing up in Sweden, in a privileged, fascinating country, I realized I'd been quite mollycoddled to believe that we are somehow untouchable from natural disasters, famine, social unrest. And when these things happen, they seem to happen over there. But watching these events unfold on tv, on the news, somehow has desensitized us. And we've lost the insight and the meaning of these disasters to people's lives. But the truth is, whilst what happened in Sweden was unsettling to me, the reality in the global south is so much worse. People are dying and climate breakdown is happening right now. So more than anything, what happened in Sweden that summer opened my eyes to the full picture. And you've got three children. Exactly. And they were all with you, they were all with Me, I mean, you know, in perspective, we were safe. The fire was far away. But it positions you into the reality of, you know, the fact that these disasters are less prevalent here to date shouldn't really make a difference because people are dying from floods and hurricanes, you know, in the global south, and it's our moral duty to act now. So. So you had the last summer in Sweden. You came back, and we're building up now to how you started Parents of Future. So what happened next? So then I think I went away from Sweden, not quite realizing. Shortly after, the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change released their report, which basically outlined for us that we have 12 now 11 years to battle climate Brainworld to achieve zero carbon emissions. Belle was just talking. Exactly. She was just talking about, I'm gonna move on. But I found myself almost like a year ago, you know, shopping for my daughter's birthday. I found myself in a shop with a lot of plastic. Looking down my basket, realized it was to the brim full with plastic that, you know, no parents, exact packaging, no children will look at for more than two minutes. I just thought, what am I doing? So I dropped the basket to the floor, I rushed out of there, and within one week, I just decided to change everything. Wow. And so tell me about Parents of Future, because you are one of the founders of Parents of Future. Yes, actually, it's a little bit more complicated that. Because then you. Well, okay, so what then happened was that we had Christmas around the corner, which is one of the most wasteful times of the year. So to be able to do this big change that I wanted for my family, we decided to use Christmas as a vehicle for that change and to make it a challenge for the kids and us to really try to reduce our carbon footprint. And we did something which we call the reversed Advent calendar, which basically included lots rethinking everything about Christmas. From making sustainable wrapping paper with the kids, from asking them to do a lot of research about the presents they were asking for, and to try to buy as little as possible and be really inventive about how we could. And do you know what? You really did do it, didn't you? I mean, the most amazing thing is you completely made it just as excited. You made it more creative. You made it feel better. So much so that the three of us, Beth, Sandra, and myself, have decided that in a couple of weeks, we're gonna do a Christmas special. And we're going, because I know some of you. I know I talk to mums in the playground all the Time. It's expensive. You are feeling that. I don't want to just buy more tat. More tart. More tart. So we're gonna do a show and we're gonna talk about how you can bake biscuits and make things. And, you know, it should be a very, very exciting sew. And that should be going out sometime in December. Sorry to interrupt you, but it is quite exciting. Yeah, so do join us for that. So there you are. You've done this incredible thing with three children age four. Well, it would have been three, then seven and 12. I mean, that's quite a big turnaround, isn't it? You know, to. Because they're so used to a particular type of Christmas. Yes, exactly. And if you're going to tell your children that you're probably not going to buy them any plastic toys, you really have got to have some exciting adventure to go on. And in the end, they were a little bit, you know, they were a bit. Well, they questioned it in the beginning, but then it became so fun for them, especially when they started talking about it in school and realized that all of their kids were quite impressed. And they got to, you know, they got onto the news, the newsletter for the school, and they felt, you know, they were really proud of it and they really helped starting a conversation. So one of the other things that we did then with this reversed advent calendar, because I'm so. I am a fashion photographer and I really wanted to. It felt. It felt like I really needed to make a stand for that reason. And using my social media, I then made a diary of what we did every single day leading up to Christmas. Show the people the way. Yeah, well, exactly. I wanted the people that usually look at my Instagram, they, you know, they look to see the latest. Maybe to see the latest editorial campaign that I've done. And I really wanted to, you know, show that, you know, it's enough we need to change the way that we're living. And I want to try to inspire others using social media. I mean, that is very important. And I know it's very important to you because you do work in the fashion industry and that confliction is quite difficult for you. So there you were, you'd done the Christmas. What happened after Christmas? Because that's just. You're nearing to starting the parents for future. Well, it was during this, doing this diary and, you know, writing about sustainable fashion and so on that I also documented. First you strike, which was outside dine on the street in December, in fact was 10 people standing outside in the rain with umbrellas, you know, calling out for Climate, for calling out the government to act on climate breakdown. And that's how I met the young people. I was really inspired by them. I tried to do what I could to help. And so I followed them, you know, in the preparations of the first youth strike, you know, actually the second, but the first big youth strike in February and closely after that, we decided to start Parents for Future as a way of supporting the young generations and escalating, you know, their cry out and their demands. So Parents of Future essentially was set up just to support the youth, but it's actually developed a little bit bigger than that. Tell me a little bit more about Parents of Future now. Inviting grandparents. It's everyone inviting grandparents. Yes. The Parents for Future has been created by a group of parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, godparents. And the main aim is to support the youth climate strikes. So as Parents for Future, our main aim is to support the youth led movement initiated by Greta Thunberg and escalated through the work of Writers for Future movement worldwide and the Youth Strike for Climate in the uk. We work to support and realize the demands of the young generation and our. Let me stop you there. We're going to talk a little bit more about this. We're going to get some very short messages and we'll talk more about how we can get involved after this. Okay, thank you. Welcome to the women's radio station supporting women's well being. Women's Radio station is all about diversity from opinions, career, ethnicity, education and most importantly, women's well being. We aim to celebrate the individuality of every woman everywhere, providing opportunities and the platform for your voice. Visit our website womensradiostation.com for more information. I'm Tamina Zaman, founder of Empower and Enrich. When it comes to money, do you clam up or get confused? Do you wish you could save more money or are you hoping you have enough for retirement? You are not alone. Many women want to be smarter with their cash, but just don't know where to start. @empowerandenrich.org you will find a host of options to help you take charge of your finances and learn how to put your money to work for you in an easy, affordable way. Get in touch with me@empowerandenrich.org and let's change your future together. Do you want to be a doula? Would you like to support families through pregnancy, birth and the postnatal period? Do you have qualities of compassion, listening, caring and empowering at nurturing birth. We offer approved doula training courses across the UK which are facilitated by an award winning doula. Here you will learn more about the support you can offer, explore the doula role and think about how to set up your business. No need for previous qualifications. Find out more@nurturingbirth.co.uk hi, I'm Carolyn Van Beers. Please join me for a brand new show here on women's radio station. It's Mother's Hour. If, like me, you're a mum juggling far too many balls and dropping most of them, this is definitely the show for you. We'll examine the highs and lows of motherhood and make sure you laugh out loud as we take on this challenging role together. With spoonfuls of advice, incredible stories. It will be refreshing, honest and funny. Look at being a mum. Are you struggling with money? Turn to us as a national charity, helping people struggling to make ends meet. Job loss, illness or bereavement can cause a real financial crisis. We give practical help to get people back on track. Whether you're thinking of having a baby, trying to get out of an unhappy relationship or just unsure what benefits you may be entitled to, we can help. Visit turntous.org.uk welcome to the Women's Radio Station Supporting Women's well being. Women's Radio Station can give voice to your brand. With a wide range of of sponsorship opportunities, including individual programs, we can tailor your experience for you. For more information on how you can sponsor a show, go to womensradiostation.com women's radio station supporting Women's well being welcome back to Mother's Hour with me, Carolyn Van Beers here on WRS Women's Radio Station. Thanks so much for being with us today. We're talking about mothers and climate change. It's the second in our little series on climate change and I'm really glad that so many of you mums want to do something, want to act and I do understand that many of you are overwhelmed. So helping us out are my two guests in the studio. It's Sandra and Beth and I'm going to come to you, Beth. We're going to come back to Sandra in a minute, but both of you have been involved in Parents of Future, which is this fantastic. It's like it's a really caring grassroots organization that was set up for parents who are genuinely worried about their children's future. Beth, tell me about your involvement. Yeah, so it really has been an eye opener for me to be involved in the beginning stages of a campaign, but I suppose for me, it all started when I had my son, who's now 20 months. And I would say that I feel like I've been aware of climate change for a long time, but it wasn't until he was born that the implications really started to hit home. And can I just say at this point that Sandra, who is very actively involved in parents of future now. You didn't know campaigning a year ago, had you? No, not at all. It really all started for me the summer, the last summer, 2018. So. So many mums. If you're. If you're out there thinking, oh, I can't do this, I can't, you know you can and we're proof of that. So it was. It is sometimes very eye opening when you have a new baby and they're so tiny and so helpless. And I think that sometimes can be a real big change, can't it? I think along with that, you do have just a sense that everything in your body wants to protect. Yeah. Protect your child and protect it from this. Yeah. This thing that could be potentially devastating to them in their future and our future. And I didn't want to overwhelm myself. I was aware that it's a huge challenge, but I was trying to look for my place within it. So I just, I started to make changes at home and not try and do everything at once to overwhelm, but thought that I could start looking at reusable options for things to reduce my waste and just look at sort of. Yeah. What my household was creating and how I could reduce that. I think that does give us a lot of panic. You know, when you do take out the recycling, you go, I know, I know most of that's not going to get recycled. It does give you that panic. And I think that's a lot about what parents of future and these grassroots organizations can do is they can relieve so much the anxiety. Yeah. Were you having a proper anxiety? Yeah, it was, it was anxiety. But I think I definitely felt like something can be done. Yes. I didn't feel completely helpless in it. And actually by getting proactive, I felt like I was able to challenge. Channel that energy in. Yeah. Into doing something practical for myself and having a new baby. It does come with a lot of waste and that just did not sit right for me, for one. So it was about looking at just secondhand options for stuff. It was also suddenly realizing about food waste. Food waste is a massive one and something like a third of all food that's created and produced goes to waste. And 70% of that happens at home, so in people's households. So I was. That was a really easy one for me of just learning how to use food from the night before and just all of these very small steps. But then I did come to the realization that it needed to be a bit more than me and it was just watching the inaction from the government and businesses in. Despite of this science, I felt like it was a real threat to myself and my son. So I just wanted to step up a gear and I looked at. Yeah, blogging about my experiences. So tell me. Yes, tell me about go eco babies. We can all get involved in this and I know there's quite a few mums out there who do have young babies. So tell us all about it. Yeah, so it's definitely like baby related, but it's just lifestyle related. And it is my journey and looking at everything really, how to reduce, how to reuse, how to recycle, how to repurpose items. Looking at how, yeah, changing the way you spend money and repurposing items can be a lot of fun. You know, you can take a pair of jeans and make them into a bag. You know, there's lots of things you can do. There is. And also I am a stay at home mum right now and I think like not having the restrains of the 9 to 5, I am incredibly busy as all mums are, but I do have a bit more flexibility with how I choose to spend my time and this for me is an important use that my time is split between my child and my family as a whole and looking at exciting alternatives and I've really enjoyed the process, I really have. And I think. Yeah. And I suppose on top of the blogging I just wanted to. It's all about information sharing and not feeling like you as an individual are doing it alone. It needs to be a collective response. And that was my next question really because, you know, you're a new world, you're a new consciousness. You know, from a perspective of a mother raising a child with the knowledge of the IPCC report and that Ty will never know any other reality. That's your son who isn't it? Yeah. Do you find that there's just a small group of you or do you think there's quite a lot of mums who are feeling the same? There's a huge growing group of us and actually within that is a sense of community and being able to support one another. And I would say before all of this as well, I was a bit of a technophobe. I didn't really enjoy social media, but actually using it to talk to like minded people. And it's not just about mums, it's about just individuals at home trying to make a difference. Yeah, you get a sense of hope and that things are happening and also you get a huge amount of skills and people share their knowledge and things that you've never even thought of. You're like, wow, I'll try that at home and then I'll share it with people that I know and talking to friends and family and also just getting, trying to get the message out there that it isn't you alone. And a lot of this is related to Parents for Future. That's about contacting MPs. Absolutely. Contacting your council. I've just moved to my new house and I think my council probably have highlighted me as irritating already. But I think you need, yeah, you need to, you need to share your concerns. And actually I've been very surprised of my response. I have responded, I got responses from my MP and I have got responses from my counsel. So you're not ignored. A response and action are two different things. But I feel like it's getting, it's getting places. We are going to talk in the next part of the show about what mums can do out there, what they can do to relieve their anxiety, how they can talk to their children about climate change. That's a really big one and I want to get all of our opinions on that and also what things you can do day to day as well as the big things like getting involved. But I do want to talk about with both of you now, Parents for Future set up in February 2019, so fairly new. But you've got done so much. Can you just tell us. And it is very empowering. I've been on the marches, it is empowering for the children. If your children have anxiety, it's great for them because they really feel they're making a difference. And you know, for example, my children are doing the rainforest in their topic at school and the teacher, who's very young, has let them all write to Boris Johnson. And so already they're eight now, there's three of them, they're trippers. They've already done that and taken control and done something active. And that's a lot about what Parents and Future is, isn't it? Showing the kids and supporting them towards climate change. And. Yeah. So Parents for Future was created with the aim to reach every sofa in the uk. So the aim is to create change, but also our Aim is to support and bring hope. So you know, Greta Thunberg famously said, with action comes hope. And this is something which is very, very important for us. We really want to enable parents to be able to take actions and to battle this climate anxiety which is also, you know, on the rise at the moment. And I think when they do get involved that camaraderie is very empowering and it is a great feeling. We're going to talk a little bit more about some of the marches. But what was the first march that you got involved with? Well, I mean we've, I've been supporting all the marches. So these are the Friday marches? Well, it's the Youth Strike 4 climate marches. So because parents of the future are, in short, our goals are to assist the young people demanding a safe planet in this world. And that means supporting them. Going on strike, the school strikes, you know, it's been not quite once a month. But we also want to support parents in facilitating for the kids to do that or answer a lot of the questions which might arise when you have to take the decision whether your child should go on a school trike or not. Absolutely. And some days, you know, they can, but the schools do kind of support it in many ways, you know. And you can write your head masters. Yeah, yeah. So you can actually find template letters on our website which will help you to write a letter. Not all school supports it. It's a tricky situation but most of them are getting on board and overall I think we have a support now and a society would like, you know, encourages young people to have their voice heard. Right. We're going to talk a lot more about how you can get involved and what you can do if you are feeling some of this anxiety. We're going to go to a few short messages now but don't forget to email me carolinemensradiostation.com See you in a few. Welcome to Women's radio Station. I'm Sarah Louise Ryan and welcome to Love Lessons live on Women's radio station. Hello and welcome to future Classic Women Awards with me, Stefania Passamonte on Women's radio Station. Hello and welcome to Julie Mae is listening. Hi, this is Anna Kennedy and we're at Women's radio Station supporting women's well being and we're talking all things autism women. The possibilities are endless. That's what makes us different. Hi, I'm Lauren Mishkon. I'm a birth doula and mum of three and I'm passionate about supporting women to have empowering and positive Birth experiences. Please join me for my brand new show From Tummy to Mummy here on Women's Radio Station. Every week I'll be here with an expert guest talking about women's reproductive health, everything, fertility, pregnancy, birth and baby related, right through to the menopause and beyond. Please join us for an informative and fun hour. Hello, my name is Ingrid Marsh on Women's Radio Station and coming soon is the Radical Wellbeing show to help support women's wellbeing. Each show I share the airwaves with ordinary women like me and you, doing extraordinary things. 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At Nurturing Birth, we offer approved doula training courses across the uk which are facilitated by an award winning doula. Here you will learn more about the support you can offer, explore the doula role and think about how to set up your business. No need for previous qualifications. Find out more at nurturingbirth.co.uk. You're listening to women's radio stations supporting women's well being. Women's Radio Station's creating a global network for the empowerment of women and we want you to be involved. Join us on Instagram and Twitter @WomensRadio station, that's Women's Radio STN or Facebook Women's Radio station to keep up to date with all our exciting programmes. Welcome back to Mother's Hour. It's me, Carolyn Van Beers with my wonderful guests Sandra Frey and Beth Mark and we're talking about mothers and climate change. It's the second in our little series And I hope a lot of you are finding some comfort and inspiration from our wonderful women here because like me, neither of them were activists or campaigners before, but they feel so moved, they're genuinely worried about their children's future, that they wanted to do something. We've been talking about Parents for Future. Sandra, I'll come to you first and you have a document that has produced 12 most efficient ways of creating change. And you know, I'm the green stylist and there's some things on here that I didn't, you know, I didn't know that. It's a brilliant, brilliant list and I think will be very good for a lot of mums out there. So we're going to talk about that now. But just so that, you know, don't have to grab a pencil and paper, I'm going to put this up on the women's radio station website. It's in the drop down bar marked Materials. I'll give you more details of that later. And it's also on the Parents for Future website. Can you give me that address now? Oh, no, I think it's www.parentsforfuture.org, but it's parents and it's the number four. No, no, I don't. Let's double check that. Maybe we'll write that, we're gonna double check that. But anyway, we'll give you all those details just at the end of the show. So to all mothers and fathers listening out there, what can they do, Sandra? So Parents for Future during this year has worked on supporting the young people going on strike. But we've also worked on campaigns and one of the campaigns that we did was to work with the summer fairs and FETA students summer. We basically came up with this idea of doing a pledge poster. We asked parents to make a pledge for the environment and whilst doing that we produced A list of 12 things, simple things and very useful things that you can do to make a change in your life. And on that list on the very, very high, the very, very most important thing is to press for legislation, change. And you can do that by protesting, take to the streets, join the young people, join any protests that you can, which is to raise awareness about climate. You can also engage with your local institutions and politics, write to your head teacher, your counselors, your mp. Another thing you can do is you can participate in changing the law by supporting a campaign to make ecocide illegal and signing up to become an earth protector. You'll find that on. Well, you'll find more information. When Carolyn Puts this document on the webpage. So all of those things will press governments for legislation change, which is essentially what we need will be the top down change of the system. Now can I just ask you, because a lot of people, if you haven't written to MP before, have you got any template letters and things like that that can help people? Because I think that sometimes you're just a bit like, oh, I don't know, hi, I don't really know what to say, you know. And start that off. Are there any example letters? Yes, we got template letters, we got template postcards where during the Global Climate Strike 20 September, we handed out to very, very, very many schools like little postcards where you could draw your picture, children could draw a picture on one side and write a message, you know, to your MP about what the planet means to you. Lovely. Okay, so we've got press for legislation change. Yes. Next. Use your economic power, move your money. Oh, I love you. See now I didn't know this one. Yeah. The big banks invest in oil, gas and nuclear. You can find advice on how to move your money on ethicalconsumer.org and can we say actually in the UK the co op and Triodos. Yeah, we can say that. I wasn't sure whether we were allowed to do advertising, but yes, yeah, let's do that. We are saying in the UK co op and Triodos are considered ethical banks. You can also change your energy supplier to clean renewable energy. And there are companies that does that. Quite simple, simply for you. If you go to www.bigcleanswitch.org you'll find a simple way of. And I'd say octopus are amazing. Recently switched, great customer service. Lovely. And they actually create their own renewable energy. So you know exactly where it's coming from. And fair priced. Yes, very much so. Wow. So there's no reason really not to. That looks great. There's no reason not to do that. And I love this one. Change the way you travel. Yes. So a lot of people this year has taken a no flying pledge which is ultimately a really powerful thing you can do to save the environment. When it comes to individual changes, one long haul journey eradicates your entire effort, you know, reducing your heat or your energy or your, you know, like it's a really big polluter. So definitely consider changing your way you travel. Consider walking cycle. Yeah. I mean cycling is so much fun. I can't promote that enough. But also just remember when we're giving out all this, the big thing that parents of future and Sandra and Beth both stand by is we want millions of people to do this as well as they can, but not perfectly. Rather than a thousand people do it perfectly. So work with what you can. Don't feel like, oh, my goodness me, I can never fly again. We're not saying that. We're just saying these are lots of different options. That if you. If you try them, they do empower you and they do break down. Well, for me, they break down a lot of my anxiety because I feel like I'm doing something. I think at this point, I just read something really interesting, and I saw it a lot over the extinction rebellion was the hypocrite argument. And people feeling like if they're participating in the world as it is, they don't feel like they can then change it. But you. You. If you want to look for, say, like, cleaner energy sources, you need to be able to ride on planes or drive cars, because those are the options that are available to you. So it definitely doesn't disqualify you from trying to improve the planet. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And don't feel like we're not. We're not. This is not the blame game here that, you know, we have been sh. Shoehorned into this life of consumerism and this throwaway culture, but now we are, you know, I'm fast fashion Sandra. That's a. Well, I'm just thinking because it's, you know, I work as a fashion photographer. I definitely fine. Combed my conscience in terms of the way I perhaps have, you know, encouraged consumerism and so on, you may know. But I suppose the way I feel working with my profession at the moment is I feel like we need to create the change. You know, creating the change that we need for the future means revisiting the entire concept of consumerism and fashion. It's not just about what we choose to buy, but we literally need to make it fashionable to live more aligned and within planetary boundaries and fashionable less. Yeah, no, and in. In that. And that's where I feel that the art. So the fashion, the culture, the films, it has got a pivotal role in actually reaching people's awareness, changing consumer minds. That's what we need, an overarching change of mindset when it comes to how we deal with now, very briefly, we are running out of time, as we always, always do. Beth. Reconnecting with nature. That's another really, really big one. Yeah. So I think especially people who live within the city, in urban areas, just getting back to nature and learning to appreciate it with your kids, with Your children for sure and get them to understand what we're trying to protect and preserve. And we're also going to talk about when we do the homemade Christmas show. We're also going to talk about the way you shop, not shopping for things new and how to reuse and recycle and remaking things. Yeah, I would say a big point of this is looking at your money as a vote. A vote for the kind of world that you want to live in. And that is sort of trying to really cut down on the plastic waste. Looking and really thinking about your diet and looking about eating a lot more plant based meals. And we're not saying every meal, it's just on the occasion to think outside the box of your normal or your usual habits. If everyone cut down just eating meat, you know, once a week, it would make a huge change. A huge, huge, huge change. Or just eat meat once a week. Well, that's what. No, that's what I said. Yeah, just eat meat once a week. Okay. We are just about coming to the end of the show and we do want to play you a beautiful song in a minute that has been written by some of the kids from Parents for Future. But just before we go, from sos. From the Kids, sos from the kids. Sorry, how can people get get involved with Parents for Future, Sandra? Well, you can find us on all social media, Facebook, website, Instagram and please just be in touch. You know, I think the details will be up on the, on the website after this. Join us. We have loads of simple ways for you to engage with your children's future. We're trying to make it easy for people to join accessible campaigns and we've got several campaigns running at the moment. So please do join. Oh, please do. Honestly, you must join. That feeling of not feeling like you're alone in this and the feeling of sharing with people is such a great feeling. Beth, how can people read your blog? Yes, I have a website called goecobaby.com on Instagram. I'm goekobaby uk. I'm also on Facebook. On Facebook we do have a group which is fantastic to support mums. And that's a really growing group, isn't it? Yeah, it's a growing group. So if you do want to just check in and ask about alternatives, eco, alternative to anything, then please, all questions are welcome. Okay, so let's take it away. Thank you very much for joining us today. Thank you, Sandra. Thank you, Beth. You can start playing. We'll see you next time. This is the tune from SOS from the kids. From the kids. Thank you. This is an SOS from the kids. All the grown ups take note of this. We're finding our voice, calling you out. You can't leave the world in fire and drought. Welcome to the Women's Radio Station. Supporting women's well being Women's Radio Station is all about diversity from opinions, career, ethnicity, education and most importantly, women's well being. We aim to celebrate the individuality of every woman everywhere, providing opportunities and the platform for your voice. Visit our website womensradiostation.com for more information. I'm Tamina Zaman, founder of Empower and Enrich. When it comes to money, do you clam up or get confused? 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