A park in Salford hosted an event to highlight climate change.
Victoria Park in Swinton was host to Ecopalooza this week, a family event which raised awareness for climate change by hosting a play, a poetry workshop and a stall where kids could design houses using recycled rubbish.
Ecopalooza was organised by Sarah Whitehead, a local poverty campaigner.
She said: “The hope is to make people realise the power they hold for change in their own lives and in the wider world.
“And start to raise their voices, and make things happen, as well as maybe feel inspired to start more events like this in the park that bring people together.
“The hope is to make sure that our community is happy and self-sustaining, and reliant on each other – and not the system that is often oppressive.”
Whitehead partnered with Salford’s Lowry theatre as the community collaborator to bring the play A Citizens’ Assembly by Andy Smith to Victoria Park.
The play is about the dangers of climate change and explores multiple attitudes about the topic.
The audience are all given a script and are the actors.
Whitehead explained: “The way that the play is written, it engages and involves the audience as it puts them centre stage, which is something that is very unique and different.
“We also wanted to show that theatre in Salford can be different, it doesn’t always have to be musical with jazz hands or ballet and opera.
“I was quite surprised with how involved everybody did get, some of the people that I have been working with for a while, I saw their confidence come out when they took a role, I was really proud of them by doing that.”
Toni-Dee Paul hosted the play and encouraged people in the audience to get involved.
She said: “It’s always important to talk about climate action – there is never a time early enough to talk about climate change.
“Everyone’s action needs to be different to make a lot of change, and we all have to make change within our means.
“We all have a responsibility to be good custodians of this planet, it really does take everyone’s effort and the importance of urgency on this topic.”
Apart from climate change, other topics like poverty and domestic abuse were highlighted as the Salford Poverty Truth Commission and Salford Survivor Project, which specialises in domestic abuse prevention, were present at the event.
Salford Survivor Project held a tombola and raised just over £100 on the day.
