| What We Do | Global Action Plan (GAP) Ireland is a different type of environmental charity. We work with communities of place and of interest across Dublin and throughout Ireland. We are on a mission to support schools, communities and business to take practical action to live as sustainably as possible. Our environmental education programmes help support people with education and creative tools to respect and protect their environment. Our DPSM accredited GLÁS Community Garden acts as an outdoor learning environment whereby schools, businesses and volunteers work on various projects, learn new skills and start to understand the importance to protect green spaces. As practitioners for Education for Sustainable Development we empower people to contribute to the United Nations, Sustainable Development Goals. Through education our aim is to engage and inspire people to live sustainable lifestyles through positive behaviour towards; water, food, waste, packaging and community. Our goal is to remove the barriers and misconceptions holding people back from taking action. |
| Location | Dublin, Ireland |
| Member Since | 1995 |
| Audiences/Sector | Schools/Communities/Businesses |
| Member Type | Board Member |
| Our Mission | To support people in living more sustainable lifestyles by offering practical yet creative solutions that inspire people to act. Equally important, GAP programmes empower individuals to change their long-term consumption habits with sustainable living tools and programmes. The goal is to inspire and support everyone to take practical steps towards creating sustainable communities. |
| Areas of Work | We believe that all of us can choose to make a difference for our environment with small changes to our behaviour. We strive to empower the communities we work with. This means working closely with groups, partners and educational institutions to develop initiatives, programmes and workshops that are tailored to their needs. We are solution-focused, equipping people of all ages and backgrounds with the knowledge needed to bring sustainable practices to their everyday lives. |
| Success Stories | As a national organisation we provide workshops, programmes and events for primary and secondary schools, businesses, youth and community groups. We are leaders in delivering practical approaches to sustainable practices and in the area of developing schools and community based programmes focused on implementing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) at grassroots level. Our programmes have been externally evaluated to show that: - 85% of adults reported a reduction in household utility use as a result of our Green Living Programme - 83% of young people increased time spent improving their local community as a result of our schools-based biodiversity competition - 67% of young people reported an increase in eating new fruits and vegetables as a result of our Youth Gardening Programme - 100% of teachers reported an improvement in class cohesion as a result of our Park Stewardship Programme - 100% of adults with employment difficulties experienced increased sense of employability readiness as a result of our sustainability initiatives at our sustainability centre |
| Collaboration Oopportunities | GAP Ireland partners with a wide range of collaborators including public bodies, government agencies, local authorities and corporations. We have schools and youth groups in our garden frequently who help to maintain and harvest the fruits of our garden. Corporates also work on complete team projects together as a team. We also work closely with our international partners to co-create innovative and exciting sustainability programmes that help shape individual sustainable behaviour change so that communities benefit collectively. |
| Project Highlights | In 2018, we completed 263 workshops throughout Ireland, with a total of 7,108 participants engaged. The topics we covered were; water, climate change, energy, global citizenship, biodiversity and waste. Water Explorer: A fun, interactive online educational resource engaging 8 to 15-year-olds across 13 different countries to learn about water issues and develop the confidence to act on them. We reached over 854 new Water Explorers and registered 20 new teams in 2018. 544 Irish registered teams saved 74,719 cubic metres of water and prevented 223.16 tonnes of CO2 from going in the atmosphere. Action on Global Citizenship: Global interconnectivity has quickly become one of the most important topics for the international community. GAP offers three different initiatives around the area of global citizenship: an interactive teacher toolkit, a free one-day teacher training with interactive and creative learning activities, and a fully funded, action-based Global Citizenship year-long programme for partnering schools. Action on Global Goals: A new initiative by GAP Ireland which explores the environmentally-themed goals of the SDGs in a small group setting, aimed at collaboratively identifying actions and strategies that will support implementation of the Global Goals at a local community level. Our aim is to catalyse action at a local level in communities and create local community ownership of the SDGs to ensure that implementation is done in ways that are sensitive and meaningful to local communities. The purpose is to help people visualise how collective local action can lead to a global impact. GLÁS Community Garden: GAP Ireland manages the GLÁS Community Garden on Shangan Drive in Ballymun. In 2018, the garden was open for ten months, from 13th March to 5th December. In total in 2018, there were 68 open days and 730 visitors to the garden. The number of plants planted in the garden also increased, with 9 trees, 117 vegetable plants, 252 seeds planted and 146 other plants planted in 2018. |
| Visit | English version: http://globalactionplan.ie |
| Connect | Facebook: Global Action Plan Ireland Twitter: @gapireland YouTube: globalactionplan |
| Contact | [email protected] +353 1 883 2185 |