In this episode we hear from the producer of Julie's Bicycle podcasts Green Heritage Futures and The Colour Green, Farah Ahmed, JB’s Events & Networks Coordinator. Farah is interested in the connections between climate and social justice and platforming marginalised narratives in the cultural and environmental space. Farah chose Walthamstow Wetlands to explore for this podcast episode, whilst discussing her experiences of inequality, access to clean air and green space, and how we frame nature and the environmental movement so it’s relevant in different communities.

Thank you to Farah and Lola for their time and generosity.

Find Farah on Instagram: @farzja
Follow the campaign to link air pollution to the death of Ella Kissi-Debrah: http://ellaroberta.org/
Find out more about Julie's Bicycle: www.juliesbicycle.com

In this episode we meet Judy Ling Wong OBE CBE, painter, poet and environmentalist who is best known as the Founder and Honorary President of Black Environment Network (BEN). Judy is a major voice on policy towards social inclusion, contributing through key national committees and campaigns and encouraging multi-cultural participation in the built and natural environment. Judy chose Myatts Field Park in South London for her walk, discussing a broad range of topics starting with displacement, forced migration, wellbeing, how food and art connects us to culture and how we might start to revive green spaces, particularly in deprived areas. 

Thank you to Judy and Lola for their time and generosity.

Find out more about Judy: http://www.judylingwong.co.uk/
Check out the Black Environment Network: http://www.ben-network.org.uk/
Join London's National Park City Campaign: http://www.nationalparkcity.london/

In this episode we meet community organiser, social entrepreneur and Founder of the pioneering community housing project, Rural Urban Synthesis Society, Kareem Dayes. Kareem is a musician who plays in the band United Vibrations, who is dedicated to building people power for positive social change. He has 8+ years’ experience of building grass roots community-led organisations, fundraising, working with young people, educating, public speaking and administration. Kareem chose the forest One Tree Hill in South London for his walk, a chance to reflect on the calming influence of nature in a crowded city, our need for community and how we might address our housing crisis and start to reclaim power from vested interests. 

Thank you to Kareem and Lola for their time and generosity.

Find out more about the Rural Urban Synthesis Society: https://www.theruss.org/
Listen to Kareem's music: http://www.unitedvibrations.co.uk/
Read about the ethos behind Kareem's childhood home on Walter's Way: http://www.segalselfbuild.co.uk/projects/waltersway,lewis.html

In this episode we meet multidisciplinary performer, poet and writer Zena Edwards, who has been involved in performance for over 20 years – as a writer/poet performer, educator and creative project developer. As a lecturer, Zena is interested in demystifying and emboldening grassroots embodied knowledge fusing song, film and poetry. She is the Creative and Education Director for Verse In Dialogue (©ViD) producing projects focusing on live literature, creative community engagement, wellbeing and transformational learning. Zena chose to walk around the Old Tidemill  Gardens in South London, which has now been demolished as part of a regeneration project. She discusses how the starting point of looking at mental health and wellbeing using art brought her to the issue of climate justice, along with state violence against marginalised groups, reclaiming land as an act of resistance and community gardens.

Thank you to Zena and Lola for their time and generosity.

Follow Zena on Twitter: @ZenaEdwards
Learn more about Ken Saro-Wiwa and the Ogoni Nine: https://platformlondon.org/background/the-life-of-ken-saro-wiwa/
Check out Voices That Shake!: https://www.voicesthatshake.org/

In this bonus episode, The Colour Green producer Yingbi Lee and host Baroness Lola Young reflect on the purpose and process of recording this podcast, and the importance of opening up access to the natural world.

Follow Lola on Twitter: @LolaHornsey
Follow Yingbi on Twitter: @yingbi_lee

The Colour Green is a new podcast from Julie’s Bicycle exploring the links between climate change, race, nature and social justice from the perspectives of people of colour in the UK.

We are all stewards of our planet, but the effects of climate change are not shared equally. While it is people in the Global South and marginalised communities in the Global North who are the first to feel the impacts of environmental degradation, extreme weather events, food crop failure, and air pollution, their voices are rarely heard within environmental movements in the UK. Without representing communities at the sharpest end of climate impacts the stories we tell are incomplete; drawing focus to their lived experiences and creative responses are crucial to developing a holistic understanding of the causes of and solutions to this unfolding crisis.

In The Colour Green podcasts, Baroness Lola Young is in conversation with artists and activists of colour who are at the forefront of social innovation - connecting climate justice, race, power and inequality.

In this episode we meet Ama Josephine Budge, a Speculative Writer, Artist, Curator and Pleasure Activist. Ama is a convener of I/Mages of Tomorrow anti-conference, co-founder of The Batty Mama, and a PhD candidate in climate change & pleasure practices in Sub-Saharan Africa. Ama chose Hampstead Heath in North London for her walk, taking us on a journey through a childhood split between London, Cornwall and Accra. 

Ama will also be co-convening a conference on rest, resistance and pleasure activism at Birkbeck University this October, called The Art of Not Doing.

See more of Ama’s work: https://www.amajosephinebudge.com/

Find out more about The Art of Not Doing Conference: www.theartofnotdoing.com

Follow Ama on Twitter: @AmJamB