Connecting communities through carbon
Latest News
01/11/23
We are delighted to announce that we have been awarded a grant of £15,000 under the Welsh Government's Wales and Africa Grant Scheme which is administered by the WCVA/Cymru.
This generous award will part-fund 10 Climate Shop volunteers to visit the project in Boré in May '24 and 2 Kenyans to come over to Wales in March '24. It will support the managers of our Climate Shops in Carmarthen and Lampeter (Tash and Ryan) and Ru Hartwell to run the overall Climate Shop initiative for the next 12 months.
Amongst a range of other volunteering activities, the Climate Shop staff will help monitor the tree planting, work in local schools and get to know their Kenyan counterparts. They will be staying in the Boré Communit Forest Centre (above).
27/09/23
We're super excited to be heading over to Boré in a couple of weeks on our annual monitoring trip. Both Climate Shop managers are making their first visit to the project - Can't wait to check out the Bore Community Forest Centre and what is now the biggest nursery in the region!
12/08/23
We're over the moon that Arsenal F.C. have committed to supporting our 'Arsenal Forest in Africa' again for the 23/24 Premier League football season. 28,275 trees have now been planted in this unique initiative which aims to compensate for the lumber consumed and the CO2 released by the publication of the Arsenal Home Matchday Programme. The club will plant a further 10,000 Neem trees on the planting site this year and supporters are invited to add to the 6,000 trees that they've so far contributed.
Each new tree costs just £1 and they are available here.
23/07/23
New Carmarthen Climate Shop funds 10,000 trees on launch day
Thanks to incredible support from the local community, some brilliant social media sharing by our supporters, amazing work by the volunteers and unbelievable generosity from our donors, we raised just over £2,000 on our first day of trading.
Check out the great launch video by Tim Short below:
16/07/23
Climate Shop Funds 1Million Trees!
Well, to be exact, as of the 16th July the project has raised a total of £210,512 and funded 1,052,560 new carbon-absorbing tropical trees in Kenya. Great timing as we will be opening our new Carmarthen department store this Friday coming (9.30 am, 21st July). Delighted that Peter Davies, the former Sustainable Development Commissioner, has agreed to cut the ribbon for us. See you there!
06/07/23
Women's Trading and Training Hub completed in Boré Singwaya. Thanks to those great people over at Size of Wales, the construction of this new building has now been completed. The project has been organised and implemented by the Boré Climate Change Women's Group to create a space where their 60 members can learn new skills, sell vegetables and handicrafts and work together to start new businesses.
Pics show the project in October of last year and last week.
25/03/23
Acknowledging our great partnership with LAS Recycling Ltd who run the Civic Amenity Site in Lampeter. LAS handle the recycling of those items that we cannot repair or sell through Climate Shop and they also kindly donate salvageable household items that are brought to the site by the community in Ceredigion. We collect from LAS regularly making this local company, by far our single biggest Climate Shop donor. This fantastic cane chair was recently donated. It will now be diverted from the waste stream and converted into at least 300 climate cooling trees
17/03/23
We're very happy to announce a great new partnership with Trees for Change, which is run by the incredible Nigel Little.
Nigel is a dynamic educator who has long experience of inspiring schoolkids around the subjects of trees and climate change. If you need someone to explain the climate crisis to your pupils, he is your man.
05/03/23
Climate Shop closing in on 1,000,000 trees funded.
With £192,278 now raised and 961,390 trees funded we're getting ever closer to our one millionth tree - Give us your surplus stuff and help us get there!
12/11/22
Arsenal Forest Project featured in presentation at COP27 and kindly endorsed by Arsenal FC CEO Vinai Venkatesham
“We’re very proud of our Arsenal Forest initiative. As a club, we’re committed to exploring and implementing ways to reduce our impact on the environment and have a positive impact in our communities. Through the Arsenal Forest we’re making our iconic matchday programme carbon neutral as well as providing employment for over 70 local people – the majority of whom are women – enabling them to provide for their families and set up their own small businesses. By engaging our supporters all over the world, who are buying their own trees in the Arsenal Forest, we’re raising awareness and expanding our impact together.”
Vinai Venkatesham
Chief Executive Officer
Arsenal Football Club
24/10/22
New video for Bore Community Forest centre just out
25/09/22
Our Arsenal Forest in Africa project is shortlisted for a Leaders Sports Award in sustainability. Over 19,000 Neem trees have now been planted under this unique partnership that aims to compensate for the lumber used and the carbon released in the publication of the Arsenal Matchday programme. The planting site is entirely owned by the community of Boré and over 150 residents have benefited from employment under the scheme so far.
Massive thanks both to the club and 66 generous Gunners fans who have funded trees to be planted - Asanté Sana and full story here
12/09/22
Water is actually flowing out of the taps! This Rotary funded Global Grant project will being clean water to the community of Boré and will massively reduce the time and energy that local women and girls have to expend to bring in their daily needs by hand. It should also reduce the prevalence of water-borne diseases such a diarrhea.
09/09/22
Last week our Lampeter Climate Shop was honoured to receive a visit from a certain Mr. M. Drakeford from Cardiff. The First Minister discussed the project and kindly purchased a table lamp for the princely sum of 25 'Trees Planted'.
06/09/22
Lilian Charo holds one of 500,000 tropical forest seedlings now being propagated in our community nursery. This project is partly funded through the brilliant tree planting social network - Tree-Nation.
28/07/22
Latest Climate Shop animated video
"Send us your stuff"
18/07/22
Climate Shop partners with Ysgol Bro Pedr, Lampeter to collect a large quantity of kind donations from the schools' 800 pupils.
04/07/22
Over 630,000 trees now funded through our Climate Shop initiative. Of these, 255,512 have just been planted and GPS logged - see planting site map below. The balance are due to go in this Autumn. Thanks to Size of Wales, WCVA Cymru and to all our volunteers and donors for your kind support
04/04/22
After 4 years, our Rotary Global Grant project that will bring clean mains water to the 5000-strong community of Boré, finally edges towards a conclusion....
09/02/22
Over 15,000 trees planted in the Arsenal Forest in Boré.
18/01/22
Thanks to BBC Wales News for this detailed coverage of our main partnership project which, with funding from the Welsh Government, Size of Wales and Climate Shops in Lampeter and Aberystwyth, brings together communities in Kenya and Wales to plant trees to fight climate change for all of us.
14/01/22
Carbon Link volunteer, Anna Douglas explains how Welsh and Kenyan communities are collaborating to fight climate change and plant 3 million trees (click image).
14/01/22
Great exposure for Boré as Arsenal Forest project featured on Kenyan national news.
13/01/22
Lovely video from Tim Tyson Short showing the Size of Wales funded, Women's Entrepreneurship scheme that is taking 60 members of the Boré Climate Change Women's Group out of the 'charcoal deforestation economy'
28/12/21
Our brilliant 60-strong team of nursery workers have just started the Herculean task of filling 500,000 poly pots with soil. The last batch of half a million seedlings have just been distributed to our network of school and farmer planting partners so once they've been monitored and GPS logged, we'll be up to 3.9 million trees planted!
Thanks to all our supporters for helping us to make this happen.
04/12/21
24/11/21
After 4 years of planning and preparation, our Rotary Global Grant project to bring clean mains water to 5,000 people in Bore finally got underway this week. The Boré Community Water Improvement Scheme is a partnership initiative between Lampeter Rotary Club and Malindi Rotary Club and has a total budget of $45,000. We hope that the project will free the many women and girls in the community who daily face the arduous task of carrying home their entire domestic water requirements whilst reducing the prevalence of water borne diseases, particularly amongst the kids.
05/11/21
We are delighted to announce that our Climate Shop initiative has now raised a total of over £50,000 to fund the planting of 1/4 million trees in the first 7 months of operation. The 2 shops had a combined turnover of £51,318.90 since our Lampeter shop opened, after Lockdown ended, in mid-April.
Big thanks to the hard work of the 65 volunteers and our 1700 supporters on Facebook that have made this incredible achievement possible, which we estimate has diverted around 25,000 household items from harmful landfill. 53,000 of these trees have been planted already and the balance are growing in the main community nursery now and should be planted next month, once the 'Little Rains' have come to this part of East Africa.
02/11/21
Work starts on Boré on the new 'Arsenal Forest'.
This significant new partnership project will see over 50 members of the community benefiting from employment on fencing, clearing scrub and planting 17,000 Neem seedlings, in addition to the propagation work created in the main nursery. The initiative comes at a critical time for Boré when the economic repercussions of the pandemic are making life very difficult for many families.
13/11/21
Great exposure for our Arsenal Forest project on Twitter today, thanks to @AFCProgramme
05/10/21
Introducing our new Nursery Manager and Safeguarding Officer - Amina John.
(Position kindly funded by Size of Wales).
22/09/21
With support in the shape of a kind grant of £10,000 from the Welsh Government's, Wales and Africa Programme, our second Climate Shop was opened in Aberystwyth by the Mayor, Alun Williams on the 18th September. In the first 3 days of trading, with unbelievable support from the local community, this uniquely green department store raised over £5,000 to plant 25,000 trees in Kenya.
22/08/21
With massive support from those brilliant people over at Size of Wales, we've been able to increase the water storage capacity at our main community nursery. This will make the nursery much more 'climate resilient' and enable us to keep watering our seedlings during the critical propagation periods, even if the nearby seasonal river dries up and our mains water supply breaks down. From now on we are planting 1 million seedlings every year and those babies get pretty thirsty down at the Equator!
02/08/21
Our Welsh Government funded 'Digital Inclusion Project' is now moving out from our Community Internet Hub at the Bore Community Forest Centre and into local schools.This way many more children can get to familiarise themselves with the Net.
19/07/21
Climate Shop project featured on BBC Radio Wales.
01/01/21
Happy New Year to all our supporters and a big thanks to Size of Wales and the Welsh Government for funding our team of 60 women nursery workers to pot up another 1/4 of a million tropical forest seedlings. Asanté Sana and have a great '21!
13/12/20
The sign went up on the facade of our new 'Climate Shop' in Lampeter earlier today. We can't open yet because of the Lockdown restrictions but as soon as we can, we will and then we'll be able to perform a special kind of magic where we convert unwanted household junk into solid carbon fixed directly from the atmosphere. More info here at www.climateshop.org
04/10/20
In June of this year we received a grant from the Welsh Government's 'Covid-19 Emergency Response' stream to deliver 500 family packets of maize and vegetable seed. Luckily the weather has been on our side for a change - resulting in a bumper harvest. A critically important outcome for the community at this difficult time when the population has swelled enormously due to the return of family members from the coastal tourist resorts.
Here boys dry the harvested maize cobs and below one family process and then pound the dried maize into flour
22/09/20
Work starts on the shower extension to the accommodation building at the Bore Community Forest Centre. We want to have the centre ready for guests once the pandemic lockdown restrictions ease and the project creates much needed employment at a difficult time.
26/08/20
Thanks to the great people over at Tree-Nation we've been able to bring 30 local kids up the Bore Forest Centre for a 2 day educational visit. The children planted trees, learnt about the importance of tropical forests, had a guided forest walk and ate a slap up meal. Many of the youngsters often go without lunch so we made sure that for once they had plenty on their plates! Full story here.
27/07/20
Latest order for 17166 trees just received from Tree-Nation. Thanks very much! This significant support of more than €10,000 is a major helping hand to the community at this difficult time. The trees will be shared out amongst our network of 1400 farmer planting partners. Here, Musa our nursery nightwatchman displays some cashew seedlings to be planted with this funding.
Asanté Sana
01/07/20
Welsh Government funded emergency seed packets getting into the hands of the Boré community.
21/06/20
Bore project receives £6,000 grant to buy maize seed under the Welsh Government's,Wales and Africa Immediate COVID-19 Response Stream
