If you’ve ever spotted fuzzy black patches in the corner of a room, felt a damp chill in the air, or noticed a musty smell in your wardrobe, you’ve met the unwelcome guest that plagues many of our Handsworth homes: excess moisture and mold.

This isn’t just about a bit of condensation on the windows in winter. Left unchecked, moisture and mold can damage our homes and, more importantly, affect our health. Let’s talk about why this happens and, most crucially, what we can do about it.

Heatwaves have increased in regularity and intensity in recent times. Three Years ago the mercury in Britain topped 40 Celcius for the first time, and meteorologists say that such temperatures could become a regular fixture during the Summer in years to come. The humidity that tends to come with the heat in Britain makes such temperatures even more difficult to bear. So is there anything we can do to make life easier when the thermometer moves to the red?

Fortunately, there is!

Try some of these strategies to cool yourself and your home down:

The Neighbourhood Futures Festival is held annually at the Red Shed, Edgbaston Reservoir (one of the green spaces run by Birmingham Settlement ). The festival is set in the heart of Ladywood, where communities can come together to appreciate the beautiful views of Birmingham, exercise, grow plants and food, discuss paths to a better world and appreciate the nature around them. All in all it’s a classic “Third Place”.

Neighbourhood Futures – Day 1

I went on the first day of this year’s festival, and I found Neighbourhood Futures a great way to connect with people from the local community workers space: people who are working in vital areas to provide neighbourhoods with help in the troubled times that we are experiencing. Below are a few of the many subjects that we touched upon in the course of the seminars and discussions that took place over the day:

Retrofit

The concept of retrofit, which means refurbishing an existing building or apartment to make it energy efficient by modern standards and more environmentally friendly, has become a very significant part of the development and construction sectors in recent times. It is therefore critical to our Neighbourhood Futures.

Who Can You Trust?

Because it is still a relatively new sector, navigating the different companies that advertise these services to find a good quality and trustworthy provider can still be something of a minefield. It doesn’t help that the sector is still unregulated.

Here in Birmingham there are some local companies that come recommended to us, like Effective Eco, but they are extremely busy.

Everyone knows, or has a sense of what makes a good place to live, and of the things that you need from your home in order to help you to lead a secure and fulfilling life. Thus we had a fascinating workshop with LivedIn, a company dedicated to bringing development to the people.

Everyone Knows Good Homes

In brief, LivedIn work with individuals, families and communities to design individual or multiple homes. Their principle is that because we all have a sense of what makes a liveable home in liveable surroundings, then we can all have effective input into the design of our own living spaces, as long as we are not bogged down with technical jargon and overbearing bureaucracy, which LivedIn attempts to mitigate or do away with as much as possible.

Building Your Dreamhome

Among the many ways in which you could independently build your own home are going “off grid” and building without permission (a strategy that comes with risks) and taking over and rebuilding or refurbishing abandoned buildings (as an illlustration we were shown a project where an old abandoned church was being turned into a home). There were also community land trusts, where a neighbourhood comes together to buy its own land, build affordable housing on it and forge its own future.

DID YOU KNOW? There is a community land trust in Stourbridge, West Midlands.

The Message of Climate Justice

The Climate and Ecological Emergency is arguably the greatest crisis that faces all neighbourhoods on Earth. As global temperatures rise and animal species disappear into extinction, it may already be too late to avoid a fundamental shift in the way we all live our lives.

How Does This Affect me?

Even though we are living through another heatwave, climate breakdown can seem a distant threat when you’re worried about paying your bills and putting food on your table day to day. This is why it is not enough to sound the warning about climate change, we must aim for, and talk about climate justice: which is helping the most vulnerable and least privileged in society, who are also the most prone to being adversely affected by climate breakdown.

What do you think?

In summary how we talk about, and how we can effectively communicate the concept of Climate Justice is an ongoing issue. We’re always looking to improve our communications, so if you have any thoughts we’d love to hear from you!

Weaving Climate Stories

To conclude the day I was privileged to attend a workshop called “weaving climate stories”, hosted by some representatives of Sau Paulo university, who told us about their “Foot On Earth” project. This project is designed to help the Favelas in Sau Paulo grow their own food.

Foot on Earth

As part of this project, communities within the Favela gather together to build a stone clay oven, which they dedicate to their ancestors as they dance the Jongo. We looked at the process of building the stone clay oven and shared the feelings that this invoked within us, while sampling traditional Brazilian snacks.

A final thought: the nature and climate crises are inextricably linked, but it was heartening to spend the day in such a beautiful green space in the heart of Birmingham, and our talks had a constant background noise of the wind rustling in the trees, the call of birds and the buzzing of pollinators that visited the many flowers in Birmingham Settlement.

DID YOU KNOW? – Birmingham has been an international Biophilic city since 2013! It has also been recognised as a Tree City of the world for six years in a row!

A beautiful frieze of flowers was created for Mental Health Awareness Week by the Seniors group.
During the latest arts and crafts session, members learned how to paint on glass with Rachel from N-V Arts and Health.
The Seniors meet every Wednesday from 1 to 4 pm for dominoes and various arts and crafts activities at the Birchfield Community Hub, located at Wilton Road URC.