Read our 2012-13 Annual Report

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2012-2013 ANNUAL REPORT
Photo credit:Veronica Burke
WHAT’S INSIDE
Message from the Trustees ............................... 4
Message from the Otesha team ........................ 5
Programme highlights
Cycle tours ........................................................ 6
Change Projects ............................................. 8
Alumni ..............................................................10
Green Jobs........................................................12
Diversity at Otesha .............................................. 14
Financial summary ............................................ 15
Thanks and gratitude ........................................ 16
Sustainability at Otesha ................................... 17
Otesha by numbers ............................................. 18
“The people who will succeed fifteen years
from now... are those which are most based on a
sustainable vision ofthe world. That is what we
should be training people to do.”
- Rt. Hon. Charles Clarke MP, Secretary of State for
Education and Skills
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A FOREWORD FROM THE BOARD
2012-2013 and beyond
Over the last year we delivered on our core mission to
inspire and encourage young people to explore what
they can do to make change happen, starting with their
own lives and communities. We did this through our
Change Projects, continuing our deep engagement
work through Cycle Tours and reaffirming our commitment to Green Jobs for young people. However, if we
had a theme for the past year, it would be around learning and adapting our vision for change to suit the needs
and aspirations of the people we work with. The staff
team have developed deep expertise through delivering and developing our key programmes over the past
few years; and as ever we are keen to keep reflecting
and adapting our work to make appropriate meaningful
impact on communities, guided by those communities
themselves.
There have been three major themes in this learning
process so far - firstly through the relocation of Otesha
to an open hub space in Hackney, East London. This
has been a really exciting process that has challenged
our working practices, and ultimately meant that we
are in a much more appropriate space for engagement
work - embedded right within a local community. New
opportunities for place-based work that build on our
Change Projects methodology are being cooked up by
the team in response to the new environment and the
many local residents we are meeting - it has been a
really positive step, and the move is already opening up
exciting new horizons for Otesha.
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Our work coordinating the East London Green Jobs Alliance and developing Roots of Success training has also been hugely rewarding over the past year and has helped us understand how best to
work with young people who have found it difficult to find employment and training opportunities on
their own; as well as learning about the challenges faced by potential employers. This is a twofold
challenge of supply and demand matching and communication - another area we are hoping to
develop and adapt over the coming year. Last but not least, as a team, we have also been strengthening our commitment to collaborative working by introducing a flat management structure which
the staff team have been developing together with trustees. This has been a positive step towards
embodying our collaborative values in our working practice - walking the walk!
Trustees in 2012-2013
Jo, Alice, Kat, Matt, Tom,
Shilpa, Hannah, Tony
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A message from the Otesha team
Hello and welcome
Phew, what a year! Where’s best to begin if not with a
celebration? In May we made it to the grand old age of
five and celebrated in style. It was a great opportunity
for us to bring together all the wonderful individuals and
organisations that have helped craft Otesha. Live ceilidh
music, an Otesha rap battle taken from our Cycle Tour play
extolling the virtues of re-usable tupperware, delicious local
food, and the great Otesha quiz!
The people who make Otesha what it is are more than
enough to celebrate alone. With 11 cycle tours, Change
Projects with thousands of young people and a thriving
Green Jobs programme we thought it was definitely time
to celebrate what all our supporters have helped us to
achieve.
The past year has seen interesting and exciting changes
for Otesha as an organisation too. Over the last year we’ve
been in the process of transitioning to a flat structure, so
we can be more in line with our values, and be creative
with how we work. We are on an ongoing journey: regularly
evaluating how things are working, adapting where
necessary, and sharing our experiences with other people
trying out new ways of working. We are now working with a
model in which all of our co-directors take an active role in
programme management, alongside responsibility for core
and administrative areas at Otesha.
We also moved to an exciting new office space, Workshop
44, nestled in Regents Estate Hackney - this is more
than just an office. A shared space, with some other fab
organisations, and a community space with activities
and free access to the local community. (We like to keep
up our nomadic habits, it reminds us of being on a cycle
tour!)
Our long-time amazing Project Director, Liz, finally bid
us farewell to return to beautiful Vancouver. Previous
Co-directors Hanna, Gavin and Claire have also left
for pastures new. We miss them all, but we are super
excited that they are all doing more magical worldchanging work! We have also welcomed Tamsin and
Cecily into our little team of Co-directors.
We hope the next year will be one full of more
adventures - young people coming together through
our programmes to make a tangible difference in their
communities, the wider and world, and their own lives
too.
Otesha team in 2012-2013
Edd, Iona, Tamsin, Cecily, Laura, Sam,
Hanna, Claire A, Claire L, Gavin, Calu, Luci,
Bunmi, Liz, Phil, Yu
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Tremendous Tours
A year of success, experimentation, and tasty food in the world of
cycle tours.
At the heart and soul of Otesha lie our cycle tours. Every year teams
of people cycle up and down the country living as a sustainable mobile
community, inspire thousands of people along the way to create social and
environmental change through their everyday lives.
Tastetastic!
A variation on our classic tours. The tours ran for three weeks and had a
food-theme. We were thrilled when the demand was so great we had to split
the tour in two!
“Dear Otesha, it was LIFE CHANGING - re-assessing priorities; learning to live communally; skilling up; feeling fitter, happier; making friends ... I have been inspired by
every idea and person I met. Thanks.”
Andrew Rossall of Tastetastic! South.
Western Quest
One of our traditional Otesha tours, for six weeks, tour members whizzed
around the west of the country. Starting on the border of Wales,they
performed the Otesha play, and delivered interactive workshops in schools
and youth clubs.
Photo credit:Veronica Burke
Impact on tour members
Surveys conducted four months after the tour showed a big impact on all
the members without variation between the three and six week tours. Since
being on tour, 100% of respondents now take direct action in their own lives
to live more sustainably, feel more empowered to share the message, and
acquired sustainable food skills and practices.
“Otesha isn’t just for a training week, or cycle tour… it’s a way of life! The Otesha
team takes a unique, creative and inspiring approach to nurture team members,
ensuring a safe environment in which people seem to realise themselves beyond
their potential – super cool.”
Who we work with
Once again our tour members came from up and down the UK - rural
Wales, East London, Nottingham, Manchester, Devon and more. We
monitored tour member diversity in more detail than ever before this year.
Over 70% of our tour members had incomes of under £5000 per year: some
of these were students, but many described themselves as unemployed continuing to highlight the need for green and decent jobs.
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Tales from the road: Western Quest - tales from a slick and well-oiled performing machine
An excerpt from the Western Quest team’s blog
Last Friday, a sweaty, slightly confused-looking group of strangers heaved their bikes up a stony track and arrived at a barn on
the top of rather large hill in Gloucestershire. It was the start of Otesha’s Western Quest Cycle Tour. One week later and we’ve
been transformed into a slick and well-oiled performing machine, ready to bestow our dramatic talents onto unsuspecting
school children. Sort of.
We’ve spent our training week camping at the beautiful Highbury Farm near Redbrook, Gloucestershire. The farm is 25 acres
of rolling countryside and ancient woods, including a section of the Offa’s Dyke trail. The community living here, The Stepping
Stones cooperative, are aiming for self-sufficiency and responsible land use with rainwater harvesting, sustainable woodland
management, food growing and efficient heating. They’ve even built some of their own houses with reclaimed materials.
However, despite being in a beautiful place, we have been working VERY hard! Our days have been filled with rehearsals
for the play and workshops that we will be performing in the schools; learning about and using consensus decisionmaking; getting to know each other with numerous ridiculous and imaginatively-named games such as ‘poor little kitty cat’
and ‘Bipedibop’; deciding on our food mandate and then implementing said vegan diet. We’ve also learnt a lot about bike
maintenance – be prepared to be impressed by our ability to fix our own brakes. Wowee.
The play is quickly taking shape. Jamie Oliver, Simon Cowell, and Jessie J make regular appearances in the barn on the hill.
Jenny (our protagonist) is learning quickly about sustainability and the banana pirate has been banished from this fair isle.
Soon to be famous characters include the ‘udderly exhausted’ Morag the cow, Tom the ‘blushing’ tomato and Ant or Dec with
their questionable Geordie accent. It will be a hit.
As preparation for the cycling that we will be starting next week, we went on a training ride to Symonds Yat on Tuesday. A
near-vertical hairpin hill made for a bracing start to our first group adventure, especially for the poor Sara and Katie who
were bravely battling with the effect of gravity on two rather large trailers. But after stopping for a breather on the Symonds
Yat Rock and munching on our celebratory quarter-of-the-way-there flapjack, we were soon well on our way to a local, freerange ice cream and a bracing dip in the river in the village of Symonds Yat. OK, we were over an hour late back for dinner at
Highbury Farm, and had to reluctantly pass the leisure centre and its promise of the our first showers of the week, but we have
high hopes for the weeks ahead.
When managing to dodge the (frequently) torrential rain, we’ve spent evenings huddled around a camp fire, watching shooting
stars and occasionally sampling Highbury Farm’s homemade apple concoctions. The fabulous Jenny Tree and Ally have
cooked us wonderful meals of vegan fajitas, quinoa stew and apricot soup. The pulses and beans are producing rather
predictable results, but they’ve kept us well-stoked for the endless play rehearsals and gruelling schedule. We’re looking
forward to moving on on Sunday and taking what we have learned on the road. We leave behind fond memories of bananas
cooked in the fire; Himalayan Balsam; the beautiful Wye Valley; stunning sunsets; our inspiring Otesha gurus, Sam and Iona;
and our wonderful hosts. Look out Stroud, here we come!
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Champion Change Projects
Projects and campaigns for a cleaner, greener, fairer world
The majority of our Change Projects participants haven’t really thought
about environmental issues before they start working with us: the issues
often seem irrelevant to many of the people we work with, who have much
bigger personal challenges to overcome, and global environmental-social
issues are (at the very least) daunting. Change Projects give young people
a place to start and a way to see the power of individual and group action
along with the skills to plan and create a world-changing project!
This year we have worked with more young people than ever before.
We’ve been busy expanding our capacity through training new facilitators
The best bit was...
:
“The game, hearing from peers, finding out new things and the amazing
video, video was very good, staff informative, the group discussion, the
teamwork, discussing the effects of food on climate change, learning about
my carbon footprint, enjoyed it all!, the thoughtful dicussions, the best part
was the fact that we were so involved, discussing indirect impacts various
things have on the climate”
in London and beyond, working in partnership, and trialling new project
formats and ways of working.
In the last year we’ve delivered workshops on ethical fashion, energy,
Fairtrade, bike maintenance, advertising and the media, food and transport
with 468 young people. These workshops help young people explore the
impacts of their own actions on social and environmental issues, every
participant takes part in a sustainable action as part of the workshop - so
they already feel empowered to create change. They then discuss and
share actions they will take in their own lives to have a positive impact in
their community, globally, and the wider environment.
We also ran longer Change Projects, helping young people plan their own
project or campaign with 223 young people. Some of the highlights include
a few projects to create community gardens - one of these is on the next
page, so read on for more!
I’ll tell my friends and fam ily about...
:
“fashion’s effect on the environment, that climate change is more serious
than originally thought, about Otesha, how much carbon the school uses
every day, we need to change to stop global warming, about the future
impacts of climate change and the devastation it will cause if we don’t act
now, that transport is responsible for 23% of global green house gases, to
buy locally sourced food, try to get around by walking or cycling, encourage
them to think about the environment when making decisions about food,
fashion, transport, etc.”
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Living Under One Sun
Our partnership with a community allotment and a local primary school in Haringey.
This year we piloted delivering our workshops with a London primary school. The workshops, which
we delivered in the great outdoors at a fantastic community growing site run by Living Under One Sun
in Tottenham, were a huge success, with positive feedback from students, staff, and the community
growing site alike. Each class that visited contributed to building a Keyhole Garden and participated in
two Otesha workshops. It was particularly inspring to think about envionrmental issues and our individual
responsibility and impacts in such a magical setting (we also were really living under one glorious, warm
sun!). The garden showed the children the power communities can have to effect change when they
come together.
With the oldest groups (age 9-11) we trialled incorporating elements from our approach
to delivering active citizenship projects, this included exploring community and sustainability,
looking at how they would communicate their achievements to the rest of their school, and the
legacy they would be leaving for the community. This experience gave us confidence that our
approach also works well in primary schools, and as this goes to print we’re about to start a full length
Change Project focusing on the media with another primary school.
A lovely letter of gratitude from one of the children we worked with...
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Amazing Alumni
Supporting amazing emerging leaders
We’ve made it to 126! We are proud to have a wonderful network of changemakers who are
involved with Otesha. The only thing is, as our network gets bigger, we need to make sure we
get to see all of them a bit more regularly - the alumni are the Otesha family after all. Our 5th
birthday was a great excuse, a group of alumni went to a tree planting weekend, and a big meet
up in Autumn led to suggestions from alumni for us to get together more regularly - so we have
been trying to hold monthly-ish gatherings of alumni joy.
Giving back to the Splendour: Wow. Four years of our alumni e-newsletter. Assuming we
haven’t missed any (which is very nearly true) that means over 200 updates of Otesha joy and
1000s of green jobs and volunteering opportunities shared amongst the Otesha family. Each
week we get updates from around the UK from our alumni, so this year we’ve been encouraging
them to take the lead on writing the whole splendour and add their own twist - we have loved
reading them!
Learning and Leading: This year there have been plenty of learning opportunities for our
amazing alumni. We trialled rolling our ‘How to Change Things’ training onto the end of a cycle
tour so that as many as possible could attend. We then ran another training later in the year for
everyone who was interested in becoming a lead facilitator with Otesha, and setting up their own
local groups to deliver workshops and Change Projects up and down the country! We’ve now got
goups forming in Shropshire and Edinburgh, and we hope to build on this as we run more and
more regular trainings.
Wild Food Cycles: Since one of our alumni organised our first wild food cycle back in 2009,
these little adventures have been a firm favourite amongst staff, alumni, members and friends
alike! This year was no exception. Despite a rainy start, it turned into a fantastic forage led by
wild food expert Rich, visiting from Coed Hills in Wales.
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NEXT STEPS...
• At least one of our alumni is about to
roll onto the board of trusty trustees
• We’re really excited about our alumni
network expanding to include our
brand new Branch Out graduates!
Training our Facilitators
It’s always great to get a bunch of people together who between them have
more ideas, passion, and desire to create change together than can possibly
be expressed in a short weekend. Nigh on 20 Otesha alumni and friends met
in Workshop 44 (our great new office space) to get trained up to facilitate
Otesha workshops. The training ranged from trying out our workshops,
to discussing and acting out ways to manage challenging behaviour. We
explored innovative facilitation techniques and also ate plenty of dal, soup
and some vegan chilli brownies. There were of course a few games thrown
into the mix which also build our facilitators’ repertoire for working with young
people: from the energising banana song featured in our Fairtrade workshop
to concentration games and more.
Why did we do all this? Well, after every cycle tour, our avid cycling
environmental-social justice campaigner friends become part of our strong
alumni network and loads of them want to stay involved, doing a bit of
what they loved so much during their tours. In London there are lots of
opportunities for our alumni to stay involved through our Change Projects
programme. But, our alumni aren’t just in London, so we needed to do
something about this. Our cycle tours visit towns and villages all over the
country too, and sometimes these schools want a bit more Otesha joy,
and just cannot wait until the next tour! So – alumni everywhere, schools
everywhere, we need to start matching them up. To expand our reach, and
ensure our local groups are stronger, we invited the alumni to bring friends
and acquaintances to the training who are passionate about the same issues
as us, and spreading those messages to young people across the country. So
the weekend also added a few friendly faces to the Otesha family.
Now we’re onto the slightly-less-exciting but nevertheless-essential aspects
of planning: putting in place a legal framework so our work can offiially be
delivered by our lovely alumni across the country, creating memorandums of
understanding. We won’t bore you with the details anymore, but all in all we
hope to be reporting the work of some of our regional groups next year!
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Glorious Green Jobs
This has been an incredibly busy and succesful year for Green Jobs thanks to last year’s well laid
foundations, our multi-faceted approach to tackling youth unemployment and climate change, and
an incredible amount of hard work from our growing Green Jobs team. Our work has continued in
distinct strands of active campaigning and practical delivery, all coming together to help match up
the work that needs doing with the people who need the work.
On the Campaign Trail
We joined the One Million Climate Jobs Caravan, travelling the length and breadth of the UK to
raise public discussion of how jobs lost locally can be replaced through the creation of the new
industries and services that we need to ensure an environmentally sustainable future. We went
to Rio+20 on the ‘adopt a negotiator project’, contributing to the conferences work on the green
economy and letting Deputy PM Nick Clegg directly know the urgency in which green jobs are
needed! We presented to the Economy committee of the London Government Assembly, the
Local Government Association conference in Westminster, with policy makers and those in need
of the policy. Our 13 speaker appearances this year have reached 412 people, directly raising
the profile of green jobs with a huge 1062 people in total so far. We met with Meg Hillier, MP for
Hackney South and Shoreditch, talked alongside her at a Friends of the Earth Energy Bill meeting
and with her, contributed to a UKYCC Youth for Green Jobs day of action.
East London Green Jobs Alliance
We now have over 20 members and have facilitated numerous cross-partner connections.
Feedback from members led us to create a successful monthly newsletter, highlighting and
facilitating information on green jobs and our updated website showcases best practice learned
on the ground as well as essential policy updates, resources, training and job opportunties. In
November 2012 we transitioned from a local coalition to a national network, revising the alliance
goals - to network, amplify and campaign.
Branch Out
The last month of the year saw the launch of our Branch Out horticultural work training
programme. We’re training up young unemployed East Londoners in all the skills they’ll need to
get a green and decent job - with practical skills qualifications, environmental literacy awards, and
plenty of mentoring from the Green Jobs team, these young people are going to go on to amazing
things and make us proud!
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CASE STUDY
Green Jobs at Rio+20
Hanna spoke at the main plenary on the last day of the Youth Blast at Rio+20, alongside Marina Silva - a super inspirational Brazilian environmentalist and politician, who
worked alongside Chico Mendes, assassinated for defending the Amazon. She has served as a senator and as environment minister, and during her time in government
spoke out and acted against deforestation, hydroelectric dams, biofuels, and GM crops. Here’s a bit of what Hanna talked about:
My name’s Hanna, I’m a Co-Director of a youth charity called Otesha. We train up young people to become advocates for social and environmental change, and the project
I work on is to do with green jobs. I try and help young, unemployed people from more deprived areas of East London into training and employment in the green sector. So, I
have a couple of questions – who here is a student? Raise your hands. And who here is worried about what kind of job they’ll get when they graduate, or if they’ll get a job at
all? Lots of you!
Well, let me tell you my story. I graduated seven years ago. I studied Classics, which is incredibly far from environmentalism, and not relevant at all! When I graduated, I went
through the regular series of internships, volunteering, and jobs, until I got lucky. I was volunteering at Otesha when I was offered a job, and over the past four/five years I’ve
stayed working there and am now a Co-Director. I was very, very lucky. And I hate to say it, but things aren’t so easy now, and they won’t be as easy for you. I have a sister
who is 19, and I worry about the kind of job market that she will graduate into.
That’s why I started working on this issue. I was surrounded by amazing young people at Otesha who were keen to change the world, but couldn’t find a job. They were
volunteering, and volunteering, and volunteering. In the face of what we saw as two great challenges – climate change, and youth unemployment – we wanted to match up
the people that need the work, with the work that needs to be done. We want green and decent jobs for young people.
This is where justice comes in, it’s no good just talking about ‘green jobs’, or the ‘green economy’. Because, let’s face it, the new, green economy could be no better than the
one we have now; just as exploitative, with people being overworked and underpaid, and big corporations controlling the means of production. We need to ensure that the
jobs are decent, and that the economy is fair.
Our definition of green jobs, is one that provides a living wage, that can support a family, that provides opportunities for training and progression, and that provides a safe
and healthy work environment. Jobs installing solar panels, or building wind turbines, but also jobs in non-traditional industries, like health and beauty. Those working in nail
salons, or hairdressers, can suffer all kinds of respiratory and reproductive health problems, as well as cancer, because of the chemicals they use. We need to think about
greening up all our jobs.
We have to demand better. And we have to demand that these jobs go to those that have been traditionally excluded from the current economy. That includes young people.
It includes women, people of color, and indigenous people. I read yesterday that in Brazil, White and Asian people earn twice as much as Black people, who earn more than
indigenous people. It shouldn’t be that way. It doesn’t have to be that way.
If hearing any of this makes you angry. If any of the workshops you’ve been to at Youth Blast, on fossil fuel subsidies, ecocide, or climate change have made you angry, that’s
ok. If we, as young people, are going to be angry about anything, it has to be these issues of climate change, jobs, environmental degradation, and development. These
issues are our future, and who has a greater stake in that future than young people?
Feel that anger and own it. Let it power and propel you forward into Rio+20. Demand better. We deserve it.
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Who we work with - and a note on diversity
We have a strong and continued commitment to improve the diversity of the environmental
movement. Over the past two years we have worked hard to improve diversity within our
programmes and sought to improve our own anti-oppression practice through ongoing research
and attending training. We have also shared our own anti-oppression workshop, which we have
delivered to cycle tour members and other environmental and social change-makers from London to
Edinburgh. We know the impact we can have through improving diversity can be stronger if we take
others with us.
Our commitment to improving diversity in the environmental movement has been a journey for
us, and it has led us to shift our focus more heavily on our Green Jobs programme, as well as
constantly striving to improve diversity within Change Projects. We achieve this through carefully
selecting the boroughs in which we work as well which groups we work with. Our Green Jobs
programme works specifically with young people facing barriers to employment for a multitude of
reasons. Focusing both our Green Jobs and Change Projects programme in Regents Estate and
the surrounding areas will really encourage and support us to increase diversity. The research we
have done here has shown a clear need for what we can offer alongside a dearth of opportunity.
Our Cycle Tours aim to visit low income communities, particularly rural ones, which are traditionally
neglected by traveling educators, our cycle tours often visit schools with just 20 students.
Finally, the issues we talk about are real, and currently negatively affecting millions of people
across the world; we support young people to think about how their actions can create a more
environmentally and socially just future.
Most of the diversity monitoring we do involves self-definition, people should be free to describe
who they are, not tick pre-defined boxes, so we use open questions where possible. When we need
to collect data from partner organisations (rather than young people directly) we aim to challenge
expectations - e.g. through mixing up the order on standard ‘ethnicity’ forms, but we think there’s
still work to do here. Here’s data from a sample of 250 young people we worked with on Change
Projects this year:
Asian or Asian British
Bangladeshi: 5.9%
Chinese: 0.0%
Indian: 7.1%
Pakistani: 2.1%
Other Asian: 5.0%
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Black or Black British
Black African: 7.9%
Black Caribbean: 13.3%
Other Black: 5.4%
Mixed
Asian & White: 2.1%
Black African & White: 1.7%
Black Caribbean & White: 4.2%
Other mixed: 6.7%
White
British: 28.9%
Irish: 1.7%
Other White: 1.7%
Other Ethnic Group:6.3%
FINANCIAL SUMMARY
Financial Summary*
This last year has been one of great success in the
programmes Otesha has executed and the impact these
have had. 2012-13 was the second year for two multi-year
grants totalling £190,000 from the Tudor Trust and the
Esmee Fairbarn Foundation. This has provided a certain
amount of security and the team has been actively seeking
continuation funding for when these grants finish in May
2013 and June 2014 respectively.
Otesha has been successful in securing new grants including
City Bridge Trust, Hackney City Farm and Vodafone World
of Difference. Additionally, Otesha raised over £19,212 from
the Cycle Tours, £60,657 from membership and donations
and £44,699 through the Change Projects programme.
Expenses were £188,805 in 2012-13, reflecting the growth in
programmes and staff numbers including Change Projects,
Green Jobs and Cycle Tours.
Despite being another tough year for small charities we enter
2013-14 with pledged funding and expected income to cover
almost all our planned operations for the next 12 months and
are actively generating new streams of income and exploring
new avenues of funding. We are optimistic that this next year
will see the launch of new and exciting programmes and
increased impact.
In the breakdown to the right, please note that
where income is higher than expenditure, this is
due to grants or earned income being carried to the
following year. In the case of Greener Enterprise,
half of the work delivered under this programme was
delivered by Core staff, and is categorised as such.
£60,093
*Paul Barron, MAAT ICPA confirms that this report is an accurate and true record of Otesha UK’s financial position at 31/03/2013.
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THANKS AND GRATITUDE
A love letter to our volunteers
and funders
Thank you, thank you & thank you!
Quite frankly, we don’t know where to begin. All of you reading this, participants
in our programmes, funders, cycle tour hosts, office friends, organisations we’ve
worked with, members, past staff members, bike riders, energy savers, green jobs
campaigners - the list is endless. All of you make Otesha - so thank you.
In particular (but in no particular order) we’d like to give a big thanks to:
Sankalp Malhorta
Sammy Shummo
Gavin McGregor LCRN
Nicola Goemans
Mustafa
Samater
Project
Dirt
Claire Addison
Thomasin Marshall
Gustavo
Montes
De
The
Young
Liz McDowell
Chris Hardy
Oca
Foundation
Jo Clarke
Kathryn Caldwell
Young
Friends
of
The
Challenge
Hanna Thomas
Abby Nicol
the
Earth
Europe
London
Youth
Laura Kim
Lucy Colbeck
Raquel
Living
Under
Luciana Edwards
Ally Ling
Pinderhughes
One
Sun
Calu Lema
Shubika Madaa
Shamar
Theus
St.Aidan’s
Erica Crump
Masha Dobraia
The
Paint
Place
Primary
School
Hanna Morphet
Keira Dymond
Common
Cause
Latymer
Upper
Andy Cawdell
Anna Hughes
Capacity
Global
School
Tony Colville
Jenny Nicol
Campaign
Against
Roots
of
Shilpa Shah
Kathleen Pollitt
Climate
Change
Success
Emily Connor
Charlie Spring
Forest
Recycling
Open
College
Charli Clarke
Sara Turill
Project
Network
Jonny Watler
Maia Tarling-Hunter
Circle
33
Housing
Clear
Village
Alex MacDonald
Phil Aubert
Trust
Chris
Vaughan
James Warwick
Yu Zhang
One
Million
Climate
London
Orchard
Sonia Cropper
Louise Laker
Jobs
Caravan
Project
Ralph Ripken
Cress Kinnear
University
Colleges
Now
Press
Play
Chloe Astbury
Sara Maclennan
Union
Community
Andrew Rossall
Olivia Furber
Roots
of
Success
Releaf
Tom Lawson
Andy Hix
Learners
JargNON
Hannah Smith
Ellie Jones(Dean)
Matt
Wicks
The
Bike
Project
Coraline Lawson
16
Kate Weiler
Graham Smith
Breadmatters
Fife Diet
Pillar of Hercules
Monimail Project
Talamh Coop
Sustainable Dunbar
The Challenge
Hackney City Farm
Bikeworks CIC
The Princes TrustTeam programme
Crisis Skylight
Education Centre
Trees for Cities
One Million Climate
Jobs Caravan
UKYCC
Many thanks to our Funders
Calouste Gulbenkian
City Bridge Trust
City Bridge Trust - Growing Localities
Esmee Fairbairn
Lush Charity Pot
St John Southworth Foundation
Tudor Trust
Vodafone World of Difference
WALKING THE TALK
Our sustainability ethos
Measuring our own practices
At Otesha, we try to walk (erm, cycle) the talk whenever we can. Because of this
ethos, we think through every consumption decision very carefully, from where we
source things from to whether we consume things at all!
Transport
* Whenever possible, we travel on bike or by foot. When this isn’t possible, we travel
by train or bus. All long-haul trips are made overland if possible. Flights are only
taken as a last resort
* Although we believe that the concept of ‘carbon offsetting’ is fundamentally flawed,
we’ll engage in practical actions to reduce the impact of our carbon emissions
as much as possible. We will only take carbon-heavy trips if we are prepared to
spend a significant amount of time and money doing carbon-reducing activities
Energy
* We host our website with a company that has a comprehensive environmental
policy and powers its servers with renewable energy whenever possible
* We ensure that the electricity in our offices comes from renewable energy
* We have a winter box full of warm jumpers to keep us warm and the heating down
* We turn all laptops and other equipment off standby at the end of the day
Food
* In our shared office, we buy Fairtrade coffee, tea and sugar
* At Otesha events, we purchase our food from a local veg delivery company,
ensuring that our fruit and veg are seasonal, organic and low-packaging. We also
get some food from Fareshare, who distribute food which would otherwise go to
waste
* We keep reusable plastic food containers and canvas carrier bags on hand to
reduce packaging from take-away lunches
Purchasing policy
* We only buy new things when we really need to
* We use eco-friendly cleaning products
* Our stationery is made from reused, recycled or sustainable materials whenever
possible
* All of our printed materials (including the Otesha UK Handbook) are printed on
100% post-consumer paper and linseed dyes
* Our Otesha t-shirts are purchased second-hand from TRAID (a clothes recycling
charity), then printed with vegetable-based dyes
* Whenever possible, we buy eco-friendly bike maintenance products
Money: We bank with an ethical financial institution
Waste: We recycle all recyclables, compost all compostables in the office wormery,
and leave a trail of repurposed tetra-paks in our wake.
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.
OTESHA UK BY THE NUMBERS
In 2012-2013
Cycle tour members .................................................................27
Cycle tour audiences & workshop members ...........1536
Volunteering hours on tour ...............................................227
Jars of tahini consumed on Tastetastic North.....11(+?)
Midge bites in Scotland ..................... too many to count
Change Project participants ............................................691
Schools, colleges & youth clubs visited ........................ 32
Otesha alumni ......................................................................126
Green Jobs talks, in the UK and beyond.......................13
Media hits this year ................................................................81
Twitter followers.................................................................1,621
Superhero office days ...............................................................1
People we’ve reached to date ....................................26,311
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www.otesha.org.uk
www.facebook.com/oteshauk
@ oteshauk
[email protected]