Feature: Live Here, Love Here

Feature: Live Here Love Here

Live Here Love Here is Northern Ireland’s largest civic pride programme.
It’s about loving where you live, and feeling empowered to take positive environmental action.  All of their work is focused around three core themes – Waste & Pollutions (incl. litter, single use plastics and textile waste); Biodiversity Recovery; and Climate Action. Today we’re highlighting some of theirrecent and upcoming projects and grants, specifically dealing with Marine for out Leave No Trace Ireland #MarineWeek
 
 

1. HEALTHY OCEANS, HEALTHY MINDS

Living on an island, a wealth of serene marine scenes surround us. For our wellbeing, it is vital that we value the mental-health benefits that they can offer us. Healthy Oceans, Healthy Minds is an annual invitation for communities and individuals to come together and reconnect with the full array of our waterways, which the global Covid-19 pandemic has disrupted.
Healthy Oceans, Healthy Minds takes place during late summer/autumn each year and sets itself the following goals:
• Inspiring and re-establishing people’s connection with our seas and oceans
• Raising awareness of the benefits a healthy marine environment can make to our physical and mental health and wellbeing
• Educating people on alterative choices/habits they can adopt that help protect our oceans from further damage and pollution
• Motivating and empowering people to take individual positive actions to protect our seas and oceans
• Celebrating and showcasing groups connecting people to blue spaces
 

2. ADPOT A SPOT

Adopt A Spot is a project that enables individuals and community groups to adopt an area and look after it. This could be a mile of your favourite beach that is always full of litter, a local park or forest, or even the street you live on. If you can think of an area in need of a little TLC, why not adopt it?

With Adopt A Spot, we ask you to commit to maintaining your Spot for a minimum of two years. In return, you can apply for one of the following free kits to help you look after your Spot:

  • Clean-Up Kit
  • Food For Thought Kit
  • Wildlife Kit

Learn more about Adopt A Spot here. 

3. MARINE LITTER CAPITAL GRANT

The Marine Litter Capital Grants will support organisations and groups to purchase items to:

• Prevent litter and plastic pollution from entering the marine environment
• Enhance the environmental management of a local area to reduce marine litter
• Improve the health and wellbeing of communities and marine biodiversity recovery by helping to improve and/or maintain the quality of public open spaces
• Improve the quality of their local environment by changing behaviour through creative concepts to reduce the incidence of littering.

The Marine Litter Capital Grant is available across the whole of Northern Ireland, and is not restricted to coastal areas.  However, the funding is specifically targeted at preventing marine litter, so in your application you must be able to demonstrate clearly how your proposed project will contribute to reducing litter and plastics entering our seas.

Deadline extended to 21st of September.

Learn more about the Marine Litter Capital Grant here.

4. INTERNATIONAL BEACH CLEAN (CANCELLED)
Saturday, 17 September

Also coming up soon – is the International beach clean, which people all across the island will be taking part in.
In partnership with volunteer organisations and individuals around the globe, the International Coastal Cleanup® (ICC) engages people to remove trash from the world’s beaches and waterways. Thanks to volunteers around the world, the ICC has become a beacon of hope, leading and inspiring action in support of our ocean. Since its beginning, more than 17 million volunteers have collected more than 348 million pounds of trash.
Many local communities around Northern Ireland will be putting what they’ve learnt with the Live Here Love Here programmes into practice to help improve their local area across the International Beach Clean weekend!

The Live Here Love Here ethos is all about positive change where we live, which aligns with the Leave No Trace Ireland goals of positive, responsible outdoor education and recreation. Live Here Love Here are passionate about creating a healthier and greener Northern Ireland which not only affects people’s physical health, but comes with overwhelming social benefits, such a pride of place, and wider community connections. Their message is that, through Live Here Love Here we can all do one small thing to help to make a big difference in our communities.