Project Dirt – put on your boots!

Project Dirt is a social networking platform connecting community projects with green and social benefits. It is a knowledge hub for learning, sharing, encouraging, supporting and promoting great activities across communities but strongest in the South East of England.

Project Dirt believes in the power of people – in nurturing great projects and not reinventing the wheel. The organisation is about social networking for a purpose, aiming to be the central resource helping individuals, charities, communities and more make a big impact on all the social and environmental challenges associated with their local area.

 

The core objective is to make it easy for members to achieve tangible positive change in their local community but also much wider, almost anywhere in the UK if they so wish. There are two ways for this to happen. Firstly, individual projects can organise activities through project pages, promote activity or find help (expertise, advice, resources and volunteers) locally via the online platform. Secondly, people interested in getting involved with a project can see who’s doing what in their local area or farther afield– and connect with them.

 

Started in 2008 in south London, Project Dirt is now a national service with seven ‘hubs’ in cities across the UK, as of February 2014, with plans to become international within a few years. With nearly 9,000 members working on over 1,700 projects and at least 60 events a week, the focus is on what people and organisations do rather than what they say.

 

Well known eco businesses and some local authorities are also joining in.  For instance, Neal’s Yard Remedies have teamed up with Project Dirt to provide micro grants and ‘loan’ employees as volunteers to certain projects. The Mayor of London now has three programmes using Project Dirt and Camden Council has chosen to run its sustainability engagement through the site. Skipton Building Society has also created a network for its nationwide “Grassroots Giving” campaign through Project Dirt in 2014.

 

Certainly the ability of Project Dirt to bring together like-minded people from all across the UK is impressive with their easy to follow web resources including Facebook and Twitter. The network highlights volunteer opportunities and acts as a great ‘additional’ resource to much more established networks such as WWOOF.

 

So if you’re thinking that your regular holidays have become a bloated, costly and boring and bloat your carbon footprint then you really need to get on over to the Project Dirt website  and get involved any of a number of wonderful sustainable living projects this Summer. Check out Project Dirt today!

 

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