B2N's AGM & Book Launch event for its President's new book 'Birdgirl'

We would like to invite you to join Black2Nature on Friday 1st July 2022, for its AGM and the book launch of its Founder and President, Dr Mya-Rose Craig’s new memoir Birdgirl (available from bookshop.com), about birding and its positive impact on helping to cope with family mental illness.

This is an ‘open’ event and you are welcome to attend anytime between 2.15 pm - 7.15 pm.

We will be holding our AGM from 2.15 pm - 3.45 pm in the Bordeaux Room, City Hall College Green, Bristol BS1 5TR.

We will then host an event to celebrate the launch of Mya-Rose’s new book from 3.45 pm to 7.15 pm the Lord Mayors Meeting Room, also in City Hall College Green, Bristol BS1 5TR.

Background

Black2Nature is working and campaigning to increase equal access to natural spaces for Visible Minority Ethnic (VME) communities as they are currently excluded from the countryside.

Our objectives are to:

Increase the engagement of VME people with nature and the environment, through education, so that VME people are able to

-Just enjoy nature

-Understand the benefits of and find their inner resilience to use nature and the environment to improve their physical and mental health and wellbeing and

-Relate back to their rural heritage in their counties of ethnicity

Black2Nature also aims to:

-Educate those within nature conservation; environment, environmental media and education or similar sectors in how to connect VME communities with nature and the environment, so that they can

-Gain an interest in being outdoors and in conservation and environmental careers

-Campaign for equal access to nature and to ensure VME people are heard within the environmental space and challenging the lack of ethnic diversity within these sectors

Dr Mya-Rose Craig - Black2Nature Founder and President

www.birdgirluk.com

Dr Mya-Rose Craig D.Sc. h.c. also known as Birdgirl founded Black2Nature in 2016 when she was 13 years old and is now a 20 year old prominent British Bangladeshi young environmentalist.

Her memoir, Birdgirl, is published on 30 June 2022 by Penguin Random House/Vintage Books, Jonathan Cape imprint. Pre-order now from bookshop.com.

She is a young birder, conservationist & activist, campaigning for equal access to nature, to stop climate change, ensure Global Climate Justice and stop biodiversity loss which she believes are closely interlinked as well as the need to prioritise the human rights of indigenous peoples. She focuses her attention on change from governmental and huge global corporations. In her first book, We Have A Dream, she highlights 30 young environmentalists of colour from around the planet. For this book she was nominated for The Discover Book of the Year Category by the British Book Awards 2022 (The Nibbies).

She was 8 years old when she first visited the Amazon and discovered that wildlife and indigenous peoples around the world were being hugely impacted by deforestation and other environmental destruction, which ignited her desire to fight and make change.  At age 11, she started her Birdgirl blog to share her passion for birds and wildlife which now has 5.5 million views. At 13 she was a Bristol Green Capital 2015 Ambassador and organised her first nature camp for minority ethnic teenagers and the following year founded Black2Nature, which focuses on engaging minority ethnic teenagers with nature and in making the environmental sector ethnically diverse. 

At age 17 she became the youngest Briton to receive an honorary Doctorate of Science, awarded by Bristol University for this pioneering work, became the youngest person to see half the world’s bird species and shared a stage with Greta Thunberg at a Youth Strike for Climate protest in Bristol, speaking in front of 40,000 protestors, talking about the need to connect every part of society with nature, as it is only that people will care about the planet and fight to save it. Her activism is informed by a life-long love of birds, the fight for equality and anti-racism.

In September 2020 she held the world’s most northerly Youth Strike for Climate, travelling with Greenpeace, for whom she is an Oceans’ Ambassador, to the melting pack ice of the high Arctic. This highlighting the second-lowest sea ice minimum and doing the most northerly youth strike ever.

The photographs of her on the ice are some of the most iconic photographs of the decade. She attended COP26 in November 2021, including speaking on a panel chaired by Emma Watson with a powerhouse of young female climate activists Malala Yousafzai, Ati Viviam Villafana, Vanessa Nakate, Tori Tsui, Dominique Palmer, Amanda Gorman, Daphne Frias and Greta Thunberg. She was also on a panel at Billie Eilish’s Overheated Live! in the O2 in June 2022.

She has written articles including The Times, Guardian, Observer, New Statesman and Resurgence & Ecologist; given 50 talks including a panel with George Monbiot and Caroline Lucas MP and Hay Festival main stage; was a Minister in Chris Packham's People’s Manifesto for Wildlife and spoke at his People’s Walk for Wildlife and has appeared on TV and presented a German-French documentary about the decline of grassland and farmland bird species.

Refreshments

Vegetarian nibbles, refreshments and tea and coffee will be provided.

Please let us know if you have any questions around this or any other dietary requirements.

Photographs and video

We will be taking photographs and videos throughout the day for social media and publicity material. Permission will be sought from you during the booking process. If you do not wish to be in images, please note that you may be asked to move to a seat at the end of the room.

Donations

Black2nature has been awarded a grant from British Airways Community Fund. However, to access this money for our 2022 camps, we need to raise £15,000 via an 'all or nothing' Crowdfunder.

Our Crowdfunder Page will be launched at the end of June and we will have just 6 weeks to raise our £15,000. Please can you make a donation if you can, but direct to this Crowdfunder page, details of which will be highlighted on our event, social media and email.

Many thanks and we look forward to seeing you there!

Helena Craig, Chair and from the Black2Nature team