How might we take action together to restore, protect and celebrate our region’s rivers and waterways?
This challenge will take place on Tuesday 9 and Wednesday 10 July at Newcastle Racecourse and is suitable for all citizens that care for their local communities', waterways and environment.
The challenge will be the same session for both days and so we ask for participants to only pick one day to attend.
How might we take action together to restore, protect and celebrate our region’s rivers and waterways?
We know that there are problems affecting the health of our rivers and waterways: from rubbish and pollution to sewage and agricultural runoff; barriers to the movement of fish, other forms of engineering and a dated wastewater system are all significant contributors to the health of our waterways. It’s easy to feel despondent, especially when resources are scarce, but we also know there are reasons to feel hopeful.
New Citizen Project are experts in citizen participation - helping organisations of all kinds to work together with their stakeholders to achieve a shared mission. This Daily Dash will seek to learn from participatory processes that have taken place around the world, where citizens, community groups, businesses and government have all come together to tackle complex problems. From the Mayor of Oklahoma working with the city to collectively lose a million pounds in weight, to the Built for Zero movement of 100+ cities working to end homelessness. We also want to build on the many impressive initiatives already taking place to address river health, in the North East and around the UK.
Northumbrian Water is keen to learn from these citizen initiatives, and take a more collaborative approach to the restoration, protection and celebration of the rivers and waterways within the region. We know that as a business we have a significant role to play; but we also know we simply can’t solve these problems alone - we need to join with others, including other businesses, community groups, the VCSE sector and local and national government, so that we can all make a difference together.
So far, we’ve had lots of interest from businesses, government and academia, and therefore are particularly encouraging people working in voluntary, charitable and community organisations to get involved too, as we recognise the huge role these organisations play.
In this Daily Dash, we will imagine, explore and work together to come up with ways to tackle the question:
How might we take action together to restore, protect and celebrate our region’s rivers and waterways?
We hope to create an overarching vision for this collaborative approach, and form a coalition of interested people and groups ready to take some next steps together. So please join us for a day of exploration, imagination and hopefulness about what can be achieved if we work together on our shared challenges.