Our popular 5-day residential for young people is back!
Experience Black Mountains College and explore your future. How can you use your passions and skills to make a difference in a climate changed world?
Spend 5 days with us, on the farm and surrounding mountains. Investigating, imagining, designing and taking action! Guided by scientists, activists, artists, industry professionals and imagineers, you will explore what role you can play in creating a just society within safe planetary boundaries.
At the heart of the journey sits a real-life challenge around food and farming. Situated on our 120-acre farm and with the contribution of professionals, you will collaborate to problem-solve, imagining your future and that of food & farming against the context of climate change. You will explore how you can apply yourself – personally and professionally – to deliver such solutions and make a positive change. We will work together, engaging bodies and minds, to explore new ways of being in the world, to live well and do good!
This is an on-campus course. The course fee includes full-board accommodation in one of our tents. This course is for those aged between 16-25 years old.
Who is this for?
- For school leavers and others thinking about the world of work at a time of uncertainty and ecological crisis.
- Budding leaders and anyone passionate to make a difference in the world
- Anyone keen to learn new skills in an adventurous way
- The program is not discipline or subject limited; it is for people with an interest in the sciences, or the arts, or more practical, vocational interests.
- It is for seasoned changemakers and for anyone who has only just developed an interest in the natural world, climate change and activism.
- You have to be between 16 and 25 year old at the time of the course.
You will learn:
- Gain real-world skills that help you to imagine, improvise and problem-solve in a fast-changing world.
- Have an engaging, social, and informative learning experience that reconnects you to earth, nature and other people.
- Learn from inspiring people and develop a sense of agency in the face of a climate-changed future.
- Investigate what you are good at, and how you can apply these skills to make a difference.
- Receive feedback and advice from experienced tutors on what the right next step might be for you.
- Cook and eat together, spend time on the land and in nature, swim in streams, sleep under the stars…
Key Information
Date – 28 August – 1 September
Location – The course will take place at our farm Troed-Yr-Harn. If you are coming by public transport, you can hop on our mini-bus which will run from Abergavenny train station. We expect you to arrive in the afternoon of the 28th of August; and you will leave in the early afternoon of the 1st of September.
Your ticket will cover: a place in one of our shared bell tents, all meals, and course content.
To apply for the Ecological Futures Camp 2024: please complete this short form. Or send us a video of yourself in which you answer the questions listed in the form. Video applications should be sent to: info@blackmountainscollege.uk
Deadline for applications: Midnight on 30th of June. You will hear back from us in the week starting the 15th of July, whether we can give you a place.
To apply, go here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/VSQQ83W
Course Instructors
Ali Taherzadeh
Ali is a community food activist, facilitator, and agroecology researcher. They are currently finishing a PhD looking at how social movement learning and organising in the UK contributes to transforming the food system. As a facilitator they are passionate about creating opportunities for transformative peer-to-peer learning, experiential learning through practical and political action, and nature and land connection. Ali is co-founder of Splo-down community food cooperative, Rhisom housing cooperative, and Teasel land justice collective and centres community and social justice in all their work.
Lucine
Lucine b.k.a ‘L U C I N E’ is a transdisciplinary artist and mental health advocate that believes in using a cross arts approach to create unique, immersive experiences for all people to enjoy and feel equal in. This focus has enabled Lucine to curate and facilitate work which engages communities on both a local and global scale, in person and online, collaborating, exhibiting and showcasing with such places as Roundhouse, East London Dance, Blackhorse Workshop, The Barbican and more. It is their wish to continuously challenge perceptions of the human experience and encourage lifelong curiosity.
Rob Bamford
Rob grew up on working farms in Northern Ireland which led him to study a MSc in Organic Farming and Food Production Systems. He has experience in overseeing the management of 400 acres of land with a wide range of unique ecosystems and livestock and has led educational programmes, visits and events, whilst liaising with local schools, charities and board members. Rob manages the BMC Farm, Troed yr Harn.
Tressa Thomas
Tressa Thomas is a community-builder, artist, and educator specializing in ceramics and the ecologically transformative power of embodied learning. She is the Activity Coordinator at Devon Cornwall Refugee Support and is invested in facilitating creative experiences that help us to connect to our bodies, each other, and the more-than-human world.
Faiqa Amreen
Faiqa Amreen is an educator, historian and lover of the wilderness. After spending over a decade working in schools in New York City and London, Faiqa transitioned to working collaboratively with schools, educators and young people. She is proud to be working towards increasing intersectionality in natural spaces and is currently the Education Lead at The Visionaries. She enjoys working with young people and their communities in order to examine, question and facilitate change in the world we live in.
Accessibility
This course is rated as 3 (least accessible) on our scale of accessibility. Read more about our accessibility policy here.