Talking about climate change is one of the best ways to increase public action but many people – however committed they are to the cause – find starting a conversation really tricky.
Common barriers are not feeling ‘expert’ enough, being worried about coming across as preachy, or becoming disheartened when faced with apathy.
That’s why we’re on a mission to train people to have meaningful and inspiring conversations about climate change that help them to engage others in climate action.
The plan
We’ve teamed up with four brilliant organisations to pilot this training – Tearfund, Parents for Future, UNISON: the public service union and Grapevine (Coventry and Warwickshire).
Starting in Autumn 2023, we’ll be working with them to offer their members the opportunity to join our three-part training programme – Learn how to have conversations that matter about climate change.
Part 1: The Big Idea – 1-hour online session to demonstrate why conversations matter so much to the climate movement and how this training can help members to overcome the barriers they have to talking about it in their community.
Part 2: The Skills – 2.5 hour online workshop introducing the basic skills members need to start and maintain a great conversation including how to dismantle barriers and set achievable goals.
Part 3: The Challenge – 6 x 1-hour online sessions with a small group where members share their conversation experiences, deepen their knowledge and improve their skills further. Weekly topics will include building trust, cultivating empathy and personal storytelling.
Next steps
We’ve commissioned an independent evaluation of the pilot to help us to decide if the project has enough promise to continue, and if so, how.
We hope to be able to engage even more partners in the future and apply for additional funding to expand and build upon what we’ve learned.
Sharing our learning
We’ll be charting our progress through blogs as we make our way through the pilot.
Introducing our climate conversation training partners (11 September 2023)
Climate conversations – what’s next? (22 June 2023)
Breaking the silence on climate change (15 May 2023)
A million climate conversations (19 March 2023)
Get in touch
If you’re interested in being involved in a potential future version of the training programme or would like to find out more about the project, you can email us hello@larger.us.