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Seven volunteers encouraging climate action

Words by Smiley Team

Cass Hebron was working at the heart of what she calls the “Brussels bubble” when she realised people outside this sphere were cut off from opportunities to take climate action. To pop the bubble and share updates about the climate movement, she launched a newsletter called The Green Fix.

As a member of Oxfam’s media team, Cass was plugged into discussions about ways to tackle the climate and ecological emergency. She decided to make climate advocacy more accessible to people not working in Brussels.

“Really impulsively, I started this newsletter,” she tells Smiley News. “I didn't plan it much. I just wanted to make climate action more understandable, so you don't need to be an expert to know what's going on.”

A green dream team

Whenever she had the time, she would send out newsletters offering insights into the various kinds of climate action available. These ranged from youth-led protest movements to conservation groups. Writing for the layperson, she decyphered different approaches to environmentalism and the steps individuals can take to engage with environmentalism.

As her audience grew and Cass juggled the newsletter with freelance work, it began to dawn on her that she could not sustain the newsletter without help. Eventually, she published a callout for volunteers to join her.

“I thought I'd just get one response,” she recalls laughing. “But instead I got messages from seven people. So I realised I could create a team to help me with all the different aspects of the newsletter.”

Two campaigners, Myriam Gambini and Issy Poutney agreed to run social media. A student journalist called Samuel Teale Chadwick, came forward to help edit, and a Brussels policy officer, Martina Razzaboni, volunteered to organise funding and partnerships. They were joined by a keen environmentalist, Alexandra Vazquez Mera and a climate activist, Lisa Bergmann.

An intersectional approach

Together, the team curates the newsletter so that it broadens the discussion on how to tackle the climate crisis. For them, this implies opening up a conversation rather than a one-way stream of information.

Cass explains: “It's very important to make any discussion about climate action more of a conversation and not an announcement or notice board.”

It was also vital to the team that the newsletter pays tribute to the many diverse groups of people interested in climate action.

“We make it a priority to try and interview campaigners from underrepresented backgrounds to try and restore a bit of a balance to the climate discourse,” says Cass.

Myriam adds: “I wish for the climate movement to be intersectional and encompass the diversity of the people and groups wanting to engage in climate action. Ultimately, there can't be climate justice without racial equity, indigenous rights and the rights of future generations.”

Since forming a team, Cass has seen The Green Fix evolve into much more than she could ever have imagined. 

“I don't think I’d be running the newsletter without a team,” she says. “Each volunteer is involved in their own separate campaign or passion project so they are already doing so much. But they still have the energy to help someone else's project and I think that's really inspiring.”

Inspired to act?

SIGN UP: To hear about exciting climate solutions from Cass and her team, sign up to The Green Fix.

 

This article aligns with the following UN SDGs

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