What's The Story With Climate Lab & Hillo Hub?

What have we been up to?

In recent months we've been reflecting on cross-sector conversations we've been hosting, exploring how local communities are responding to the climate crisis through Climate Lab Pendle, and building up our local womens' wellbeing group Hillo Hub amongst many other things. We thought we'd share a bit more about these two projects here. 

​Hillo Hub is a female-led physical activity programme for (mainly) South Asian women in Nelson to support physical, emotional and spiritual wellbeing. It evolved out of an identified need in the town, working with partners to listen to the needs of the community, for years, before taking the form we have today.

Alongside the activities, which focus on exercise (300 women have learnt to ride a bike through Hillo Hub!), social gatherings, women's health, food and faith; the programme supports the systems changes needed to overcome barriers to fitness amongst South Asian women.

We're delighted that we've recently been awarded £19,130 from National Lottery Awards for all to continue our work, though the financial reality is still tricky. 
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"We were at a standstill until we heard the good news from Awards for All. But still, the struggles around funding are real...To make meaningful, structural changes takes years of hard work and we need the funding to match. Our plans now involve joint bids to secure future funding to continue the project longer-term. We have a particular interest at the moment in a project for women who can't currently access mainstream gyms, and there's an interest in swimming too". - Zoya Bhatti, In-Situ (co-founder of Hillo Hub)

​Climate Lab Pendle So Far...

Climate Lab Pendle is a programme of climate engagement where we have conversations with people in order to explore, rather than to tell. 

The work challenges ‘business as usual’ thinking and de-centres the emphasis on individual behaviour change, looking instead at structural changes.

The reflective events, conversations and resources have been supporting our communities to collectively navigate the complexities of the climate crisis and the inequality that lies at the heart of it. 

Climate Lab Pendle promotes knowledge, discernment, listening, respect and collective action. We are delivering a range of activities in Nelson and across Pendle, including Climate Fresks.

Climate Fresks were developed by a University professor in France, as a way of making simpler for his students the hefty IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) report. Cutting out the report's main graphics, he asked the students to sort these into cause and effect. 

This has now developed as an activity that takes people in group settings on a journey starting with basic human activities like building and eating, slowly unfolding a picture of where we are heading. 

Millions of people around the world are now taking part in Climate Fresks as a fun way of opening up conversations.

As part of Climate Lab Pendle, In-Situ's Anna Taylor, alongside climate activist and educator Tom Deakin, have created this case study: How to We Approach Systemic Crises at a Local Level?