Let’s Go Outside and Learn is a Community Interest Company set up in 2015. We work in the London Boroughs of Richmond and Hounslow. We also work in the River Crane Catchment to encourage community stewardship in the river corridor.

The organisation has 2 directors, a board of specialist advisers, a dedicated team of freelance workers who deliver projects and volunteers who support project delivery. We work in partnership with a large network of organisations and stakeholders to deliver our projects.

Our vision

Our aim is to use green spaces and nature to support and enhance the lives of our communities. We do this by:

• Introducing people living in an urban and built-up environment to the natural environment around them,
• Bringing people who are socially isolated together to make new friends,
• Showing the benefits that spending time outdoors offers,
• Encouraging participants to feel part of the wider community,
• Breaking down barriers for people who might not normally access parks to come together in a safe space,
• Encouraging everyone to learn about nature / the natural environment.
• Encouraging learning including new skills.

Benefits of improving access to greenspace

Research tells us that improving access to greenspace has lots of benefits for individuals and the community. It promotes healthy behaviours, such as engaging in physical activity and other recreation, it can promote social contact and connectivity, foster a sense of belonging, reduce isolation and loneliness, and foster and encourage a connection to nature and pro-environmental behaviour.

Our projects also show that improving access to green space supports the development of skills and capabilities and fosters community integration through volunteering and other opportunities.

Our project audiences

We work with lots of different groups of people through our projects. The one thing that participants have in common is that they would like to spend more time outside.

Our work shows that parks are part of a community’s social infrastructure and an asset that needs to be valued and invested in. This must be achieved by supporting activities that encourage people to use them and bring them together as well as investing in infrastructure.

We know that regardless of ethnicity or age, everybody values good quality green space that is well managed and maintained but the presence of green space within areas does not necessarily mean it will be well used. Many of our audiences are affected by barriers to engagement in open spaces. One of the main influences on an individual’s use of green space is how safe they feel. Research suggests that if you feel unsafe these impacts on the level of use of the space.

Green space has the potential to bring diverse groups people together and by providing space for organised and casual encounters with neighbours of different ages and ethnic groups. We believe that parks and green spaces are some of the most valued places in local areas and can be many people’s main or only experience of the natural world.

Let’s Go Outside and Learn.