Green Light Trust is 30 years old, what has changed in that time?

The inspiration for this article came whilst sat in our idyllic head quarters, deep in the Suffolk Countryside on a Tuesday morning. I was enjoying the calm, waiting for the building to be filled with the noise and excitement of the many people joining us on their own journeys to recovery or development to overcome the challenges life has dealt them. When I receive an email from Nigel Hughes, one of Green Light Trust's co-founders. Anyone who has met Nigel will be aware of his indomitable commitment to the environment and people. It was this commitment that inspired Rick and Nigel to start Green Light Trust, following their visit to Papua New Guinea. Whilst it was short, it was definitely to the point. The email read "On 22 Nov 1987 Ric and I took off on our quest to explore THRIVING rainforest as a response to this news way back then." with a link to a BBC article.

The article describes amazon rainforest being cut down at a rate of one football pitch a minute in Brazil. I clicked the article expecting to be transported back to 1987 and see the article alongside announcements of Viv Anderson signing for Manchester United for ￡250,000. Instead the article is hot off the press and bordered by announcements of Paul Pogba's potential exit from Manchester united for over ￡100 million. So you will have to forgive me for clumsily reaching for the changes in football as an analogy, but with so much change here, why does it feel like ground hog day for the worlds rainforest?

Without too much time to pause and consider this, my day was interrupted by James, a young adult on the Autistic Spectrum, who tests the fire alarms on a Tuesday, as part of his routine before the group go for a walk in the woods. Followed swiftly by the arrival of a group of eight adults in recovery from substance misuse, collecting tools and equipment before going to carry out management in Frithy wood. But in the ensuing moments following Nigel's timely hand grenade lobbed in my direction, I considered what has changed at GLT in those 30 years? Thankfully a lot has changed at the trust as it has grown and matured, but equally, some very important things have remained the same.

In my role as CEO I often describe the early days of the trust, initially I thought I was doing this to set the scene. But I now understand that without knowing how the trust came to be, it is impossible to understand why it is so special, why it has been able to consistently excel in whatever it has done. We are fortunate now that these early stages have been captured in our new website, in the words of our founders.

Following these early stages and enabling so many communities to plant and manage their own woodland. We began to look at what is it that makes us unique, this coincided with the growth of our Forest School training. Where mainly teachers are trained to facilitate child led outdoor sessions which support children to develop in ways that classroom activity alone is unable to do. Whilst, for the purposes of brevity, I am condensing large periods of time and development into single lines, a pivotal shift was occuring in the trust. The trust was beginning to look at who it was supporting, in addition to the impact it was making on the environment. The desire to support those who not only required the most support, but in many cases had the least access to the natural environment began to emerge. The Green shoots of the organisation I am now so proud to lead today began to emerge. We now support those marginalised or disadvantaged in society. This includes adults and children with mental health issues, specific educational needs, are in recovery from substance misuse, are under probations services, at the point of exclusion or have already been excluded from education, or are just strugglisng to engage in education. As well as a broad range of other factors and challenges. The common theme in all of our work is that we use nature a medium to re-engage these people.

In addition to training in the region of 60 teachers a year to deliver forest schools, we have for a number of years engaged with growing numbers of adults and children from the groups described, As represented by this infographic.The engagements the trust makes with people lead to significant and sustained improvements in their lives. Whilst there are many case studies to support this impact, we can't shout about everything we do. The work with women in refuge is a good example of one of these cases. The impact on the women we work is inspirational, but in addition to this impact the changes in the children of these women is also huge.

In 2018 we worked with 185 adults with mental health issues, mainly through our 12 week woodland minds programme. It costs us ￡960 to provide this service to each adult we work with. Which is funded through a range of different sources. However, as with all charities it is difficult to raise the funds to carry out the important work we do. Which is one of the things that hasn't changed over the last 30 years. Whilst I would love it if this changed, one thing I hope never changes is the ethos of the organisation. We work with people not on them which is something that stems all the way back to our founders work in Papua New Guinea, supporting them to protect their own forest. Then supporting communities to own. design, plant and manage their own community woodlands. We now support people to be part of the charity whilst they are working with us. I hope our website now reflects this primary focus on the people we support. Which if we go back to what has changed, well that is the biggest one. Green Light Trust firmly believe people have the power to be the solution to the problems we create to the environement. In our own way, we support and motivate people to understand their impact on that environment, their place within it and in doing so support their own mental and physical health. But don't take my word for it, please view Bryony's story, who can far better illustrate what has changed.

For more information about our work go to www.greenlighttrust.org or click on the link below.