Ayrshire College wins major award
Ayrshire College has won a Green Gown award for its Connecting Communities initiative, a fully sustainable project to address inequality and to improve the quality of life for those in the Ayrshire community.
Ayrshire College won the Benefitting Society award – which the College also won in 2019 – at the UK & Ireland awards ceremony on Thursday 30 November.
The College is now a finalist in the International Green Gown Awards, due to take place in June 2024.
The Green Gown Awards recognise the exceptional sustainability initiatives being undertaken by colleges and universities throughout the UK and Ireland, and emphasise an institution’s role in enabling and empowering young people to tackle pressing global issues.
Connecting Communities is led by the Sport and Fitness department at Ayrshire College.
The initiative allowed Sport and Fitness students get a full range of experience working with children from preschool age to hosting the Older Adult Group, designed to improve mental and physical health. In addition to daily offering of community outreach, the College also hosted the largest festival of sport for people with additional support needs in the south of the country; Ayrshire Sportsability.
Working with partners in local government and local employers, the College was able to remove potential barriers relating to poverty. Providing free sports kit to all students and participants of the Connecting Community programmes and free packed lunches to everyone at their holiday camps.
Ayrshire College’s unique partnership with East Ayrshire Council’s Vibrant Communities was paramount in driving this project forward and making it a success.
Elaine Hutton, Assistant Principal at Ayrshire College, said: “Ayrshire College is delighted to have won the highly prestigious Green Gown Award. This coveted accolade highlights that while we may be small, we all have the ability to make significant impact on people’s lives through working with others towards a healthy and sustainable future."
Judges commented that Ayrshire College demonstrated that its Connecting Communities initiative “could be readily replicated at low cost for other education institutions in both FE and HE”. Judges also added: “The judges were really impressed with this fully inclusive and practical project which seeks to mitigate the impact of fuel and food poverty by opening up the college to their community. Fantastic to see such an inspirational initiative from an FE college and would have been our winner regardless of this being a small institution.”
6 December 2023
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