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I am an active member of Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth, and feel very strongly about conservation issues. Paganism requires a love for Mother Earth and her rhythms, and so I feel that by actively taking part in these campaigns, I am helping the Earth, which I feel is one of the most important parts of my religion.
About Greenpeace
I have been a member of Greenpeace for about a year and a half, and originally started out by donating £3 a month, being what they discouragingly call an 'armchair supporter'. You can sign up to do this yourself online, here, and give any amount that you feel is appropriate. After a year of following their campaigns, I decided to sign up to become an active member.
This involved a simple form to fill in on the internet, which can be found here, and entitled me to more detailed information of campaigns, and I was also given the contact of the local organiser, Liz. I contacted her via email, and began to recieve regular dates of local events from her, which included training sessions, meetings of groups, peaceful protests and manning information stands. To find out about Greenpeace's current campaigns, please click here
It was quite difficult finding a time when I could attend, but I eventually made it to a leafletting day held on Bold Street in Liverpool. There I met up with Liz and some other campaigners, and we distributed leaflets and other campaign materials, and gave out information on the Stop Esso campaign.
I am planning in the future to do more work on the Stop Esso campaign, although what exactly I am doing would be telling! As I mentioned above, it is hard to find time to commit to events as much as I would like, and so I do not volunteer very often.
About Friends of the Earth
I have only recently joined Friends of the Earth, and was signed up to it via a friend, Emma, who was interested in joining herself. She got in contact with the co ordinater for our area, Frank, and we arranged a meeting with him. You can sign up online to donate a given amount, here, or become a member yourself, here.
Friends of the Earth are more interested in conservation on a local level, and so we were all very interested in setting up a group in St Helens. Frank told us that the last group here was just too small to keep up, and eventually merged with the Liverpool group. So we had two options, to either join in with Liverpool's activities or organise our own St Helens group.
Although I am now an active member, after I signed and posted a form given to me by Frank, I am still waiting on Emma's membership before we begin any work. In the meantime, you can read more about FOE's campaigns, here.
About People and Planet
I am not yet a member of People and Planet, but would like to mention them as I think they are good and would like to join eventually. They are a conservation charity run by students, and run groups at most of the major universities in the UK. I intend to join when (if!) I become a student at Leeds Metropolitan University this September.
They collaborate quite closely with Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth, especially on the Stop Esso campaign, but are a relatively small charity. However, it is aimed entirely at the student lifestyle, which I think is excellent, and not only provides students with a means to meet like minded people their own age, they help to save the earth as well!
People and Planet do not focus entirelly on environmental causes, but include fair world trading, poverty and predjudice as well. Although I am not interested in these areas, some of you may be, and you can find out if there is a group at your university here. You can also make a donation here.
If anyone would like to join in with any of this volunteer work I do, particularly if you are interested in starting a St Helens FOE group, please email me.
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