Voices for a Climate Emergency
“Our house is on fire! Why aren’t you panicking?”
Thus began 16-year old Greta Thunberg in her address to the World Economic Forum, in January 2019.
“World Governments have declared a Climate Emergency and yet nobody is treating it like an emergency!”
We believe there is an emergency and the people it affects most are our children. We believe nobody is too small to make a difference so we are helping young people, wherever they are, to compose their thoughts in words. A song, a poem, a story. Voices for a Climate Emergency. Words that get right to the heart of those in power. For children, those in power are everyone but themselves.
In a series of workshops our experienced facilitators help groups of children to articulate their concerns and simple ideas to address the climate emergency. Working with professional writers, composers, and musicians we turn these words into songs and poems to be passed on to adult choirs and performers: parents, teachers – anyone who wants to share them!
Letters to the Earth
Letters to the Earth is a global participatory campaign, and a collaboration with Culture Declares Emergency. In 2021, Kilter joined the campaign and ran a series of workshops in local schools to encourage children to imagine a better world in which they want to grow up. The aim - to inspire and empower the children, their families and their schools to take care of the planet.
During our workshops, each student wrote their very own Letter to the Earth, which was then displayed as part of an installation in an empty shop window in Bath over the Christmas period.
In Spring 2022, six actors volunteered their time to read some of the children’s letters online - you can watch & share the videos by clicking on the images below.
Participant Reactions
“Kilter have this vast body of knowledge surrounding the environment, ecologies and sustainable living, alongside the requisite theatre making skills to turn this knowledge into something entertaining, heart warming and provocative. To boot they have a natural way of imparting their knowledge and skills to younger people.”
- Kate Cross, Director of the egg
Find out more about our training and school workshops here.
During the project we delivered workshops to Swainswick C of E Primary School, Bathampton Primary School, Abbot Alphege Academy, and St Andrews Primary School.
Thanks to a grant from the Bath & West Community Energy Fund we are able to offer these workshops free of charge to participating schools!
Kilter’s Letters to the Earth project was made possible by a grant from the Bath & West Community Energy Fund.
We would like to say a big thank you to the actors who volunteered their time to read the children’s letters and help us spread their messages!
“It was well structured, totally inclusive and thoroughly enjoyable.”
- Lucy Willis, Teacher
