CITY BUILDING

The City Building apprentices have been hard at work again for Streets Ahead.

Our campaign partner has supported an array of exciting projects across Glasgow – from building a hen coop for nursery children in the Gorbals, to delivering sackfuls of Christmas goodies to children in Castlemilk.

This year, they also helped St Roch’s Junior Football Club to spruce up their changing rooms.

As well as making the away dressing room bigger and safer, they painted the walls, improved the function room and installed a new front door.

Dr Graham Paterson, executive director at City Building, explains: “Six of our apprentices upgraded the facilities at St. Roch’s Football Club which plays an important role in bringing local people together. Its premises are also used by the wider community.

“Giving the grounds a makeover made a big difference to all users of the club and we’re proud of the fantastic job carried out by our apprentices, who have also had a chance to learn more about the communities they serve.”

Lesley Quinn, head of business support at City Building, was part of the awards judging panel. She was particularly impressed by the way groups responded to tough challenges, finding innovative solutions to problems affecting the whole community.

“Many of these people are involved in work that can’t be easy – and yet they persevere and through it, support families and wider communities,” she says.

“They don’t just look at their own environment, they look at the whole community and that is very impressive.”

GLASGOW CITY COUNCIL

Another of our original campaign partners, Glasgow City Council has supported Streets Ahead in a number of ways over the years.

Its schools and nurseries have always been at the heart of our campaign, and this year was no different.

Streets Ahead brought you the story of Sunnyside Primary in the east end, and its novel approach to getting rid of plastic.

Subsequently, the story went global, and the young pupils inspired other environmentally-minded schools and organisations to follow suit.

Sunnyside’s #NaeStrawAtAw campaign was already up and running before the Prime Minister announced she was waging war on plastic.

The pupils launched their campaign on social media last September after estimating they threw away around 38,000 school milk straws every year - and learning how plastic can kill seabirds, fish, turtles and cetaceans.

The school set up an Ocean Defenders group and to highlight the damage caused to seabirds by plastic in the sea, they created a sculpture of a gannet out of milk cartons and papier-mache.

The sculpture, which won a Keep Scotland Beautiful competition prize, has a transparent stomach filled with fish and plastic waste to show the dangers in our oceans.

Sunnyside is one of almost 90 Glasgow primaries, nurseries and Additional Learning Support (ASL) units which signed up to the city council’s Schools Charter, backed by the Streets Ahead. The charter means schools pledge to complete at least three environmental tasks or projects a year.

Streets Ahead also highlighted the fantastic clean-up worked carried out by the city’s schools.

Children and staff at Happy Days Nursery, based in Community Central Hall in Maryhill, were fed up looking at litter and debris on the streets surrounding the venue, so they organised a Valentine’s Day clean-up.

Likeminded pupils and teachers at Nithsdale Road Nursery in Pollokshields also embraced the campaign, organising regular litter picks in and around their premises.

Fiona Ross was part of the Streets Ahead judging panel. She said: “There is an amazing amount of work being carried out by young people all over the city. Something as simple as a clean-up can make a huge difference, not just to the pupils themselves, but to the wider community, which is really fantastic. It’s a real boost to community spirit.”