Huge congratulations go to Jennie Martin who has recently won the Environment Award for the Glenfiddich Spirit of Scotland 2014. Jennie studied at SAC for her MSc in Ethnobotany graduating in 2013. Jennie is the founder and Executive Director of Wild things! an education charity which offers wilderness and nature experiences to people of all ages and abilities.
Jennie tells us about the competition, winning the award and her work with Wild things!:
Thanks to incredible support from the public (including students and staff from SAC Kent!), I was presented with the winning title in the environmental category of The Glenfiddich Spirit of Scotland Awards 2014 at Prestonfield House Hotel, Edinburgh in November.
These awards are sponsored by Glenfiddich Whisky and The Scotsman newspaper. They were started in 1998 and are annually given: “to recognise inspirational achievement across Scotland’s diverse cultural spectrum”.
The Awards feature eight categories: film, art, business, food, sport, writing and the environment with previous winners including people such as Gordon Buchanan, JK Roweling and Ewan McGregor. Whilst I am not so sure I quite fit with such high profile names it is still a fantastic accolade to win this award and have the work of Wild things! be nationally recognised.
I started Wild things! in 2003. It is an environmental education charity that is committed to providing outdoor experiences for people of all ages regardless of emotional, physical or financial barriers. Our fundamental premise on all our programmes is that our work is embedded with the ethos of providing programmes that encourage a ‘mutually beneficial experience for all’. Which means that each activity is not just designed for the benefit of the individual but it is also for the benefit of the environment.
We often work with the John Muir Scheme and John Muir’s personal ethos of a ‘Hand, Head, and Heart’ approach to caring for and understanding the natural world. The evidence that supports how health and well being increased by spending time in nature is prolific, as is the evidence that we are much more likely to care for something that we have a positive experience of. At Wild things! our programmes stimulate curiosity (head), provide opportunities to roll up our sleeves and get stuck in through bushcraft or conservation activities (hand) and we are committed to doing this in a meaningful and fun way (heart).
I was just delighted to win this award (and especially to be given it by the lovely Gordon Buchannan!) It has undeniably been a lot of hard work over the past 11 years developing and supporting the charity to do what it does today and this just couldn’t have been possible without all the people who have worked at Wild things! and who current work with us. We have a great team and the results of this are evident in that 98% of our participants want to return to do more courses with us!
Thank you a billion SAC Kent for your support in promoting this award for us.
If you want to find more about the work of Wild things! please visit: www.wild-things.org.uk