“We feel at home” at the Calthorpe: Community garden volunteers share their experiences

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“We feel at home here” was a common view of community garden volunteers at an event hosted by the Calthorpe Community Garden, central London. This was the September Spotlight Garden of Urban Harvest 2021, organized by the Capital Growth programme. Held on Friday 24th September, the event began by screening short films made by participants in various community-gardens (see our project below). The films stimulated a discussion about volunteers’ experiences, especially getting to know different kinds of people, sharing their skills, … Read More

Using Storytelling to Engage in Complex Social-Ecological Challenges

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How do we navigate our way through complex challenges and how can storytelling support this process? Julieta Vigliano Relva and Cobra Collective member, Julia Jung, have recently published an article that explores this key question. This blog post is a brief summary of the article which can be freely accessed here. Our current times are complicated and contradictory. The impacts and need to address the climate and biodiversity crisis are becoming increasingly more clear and urgent with unprecedented environmental disasters … Read More

Community food growing helps build the future differently: An invitation to tell your visual story

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Have you experienced benefits in your everyday life through community food growing activities? Would you like to learn how to produce visual stories to share your experiences? Can you help us investigate how community food growing has helped individuals and communities cope with the Covid-19 crisis? Then we want to hear from you! Starting in September 2021, we are recruiting a second cohort of participants for a collaborative digital-storytelling project organised in partnership with The Open University, Sustain and RISC. … Read More

New online course for strengthening community mental health resilience

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The Cobra Collective is proud to announce the launch of its freely available OpenLearnCreate course on community mental health resilience. The COVID-19 pandemic has led to increasing demand for mental health services while also highlighting the key role that mental health plays in our daily lives. “Good mental health is absolutely fundamental to overall health and well-being,” as expressed by Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization. The impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the associated economic recession, … Read More

Digital Storytelling about group food growing – Invitation to Participate

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Have you experienced benefits in your everyday life through group food-growing activities? Are you involved in community food growing and would like to share your story? Can you help us investigate how community food growing has helped people and groups to cope with the Covid-19 crisis? Then we want to hear from you! Starting in February 2021, we are recruiting participants for a collaborative digital-storytelling project organised in partnership with the Open University, Sustain and RISC. More details can be … Read More

Mental health project kicks off in Guyana

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Over one billion people globally struggle with issues related to mental health, including depression, substance abuse and self-harm. Lack of research in implementation and policy change is further impeded by stigma, capacity shortages, and fragmented service delivery. In collaboration with Guyanese communities and stakeholders, and funded by the British Academy, the Cobra Collective is participating in ARCLIGHT (‘Action Research Community Led Initiative Guyana Health Team’), an ambitious new research project which will develop, implement and evaluate a capacity building and … Read More

Parikwarunawa – Land of the heavy breeze!

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Continuing our trip, we moved from Maruranau to Parikwarunawa. Just after concluding the video screening, the team began packing to make an early departure the next day. Sigh! But it was not time for home and more so Christmas yet! But it was on my mind as we packed. We left on the 11th December for the next village clear back across the savanna to the south central district of the Rupununi. Close to Lethem that you could almost touch … Read More

Pantani Book – 33 Amerindian Tales from the North Rupununi, Guyana

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If you happen to visit the Rupununi region of Guyana, and take a hike with a local guide, it is likely you will hear plenty of fascinating stories and legends, as it happened to me. At the end of January 2014, I travelled to the south of Guyana with a group of researchers and had an opportunity to visit a place called ‘Skull Mountain’. During the trip, our local guide shared many tales and stories about the rivers, and valleys … Read More

Kaimen! Working with the Wapichan from the South Rupununi

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A team consisting of three – Ryan Benjamin, Rebecca Xavier and I (Grace Albert) – departed the north savannas for our journey to the south savannas on the 1st December, 2018. Driving through the North Rupununi Wetlands left the feeling of going away for a while. Bearing in mind, we were indeed going to be away for about 20 days.  The team overnighted in the township of Lethem to do our grocery shopping. The next day, after lunch, we were … Read More

Participatory video empowering Indigenous youth

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Celebrating the United Nations International Youth Day Read our article in the latest Darwin Initiative Newsletter which features how our on-going project activities are seeking to empower youth in Indigenous communities. The article shows how the project is engaging young people through participatory video to explore how traditional knowledge contributes to conservation and the relationship between Indigenous communities and protected areas. It highlights the benefits of participatory video in providing skills and confidence to young people to research their own … Read More

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