Blue Mentor – Youth Education & Engagement Officer

25 hours per week on a three year fixed term

This unique role will work with communities to make a real difference for nature in Kent. In your role as Blue Mentor, you will support and facilitate Blue Influencers to deliver inspiring projects to enable environmental youth social action.

Your role is central to connecting with and energising local young people, using Community Organising approaches.

At Kent Wildlife Trust we are working to facilitate nature’s recovery across a variety of landscapes and within the communities we work alongside, and we know that if nature is to be restored at scale, we need many more people on nature’s side. 

You will build relationships with, empower and enable a network of organisations, charities, groups and institutions in the Dover and Folkestone area to support young people in environmental social action.

You will enable young people to help themselves through supporting the design and delivery of a series of facilitated and sustainable activities leading to a ripple effect of young people taking action to the benefit of the natural world.

We are looking for an experienced community organiser to work on our Blue Influencers project at Kent Wildlife Trust funded by the Ernest Cook Trust and the #iwill Fund.

Globally and nationally wildlife is in steep decline. We appear to be reaching critical tipping
points around the loss of biodiversity as well as around climate change, both being
interlinked. Human society cannot prosper without wildlife and healthy ecosystems.

Kent’s wildlife needs to be restored to much higher levels. We can no longer allow common
things to become rare. We can only do this by restoring large-scale habitat from degraded land.
Doing this will contribute to solving global problems. But we won’t be able to do this unless
we publicly aspire to a higher level of impact and show that we can deliver this.

The Job:

Are you interested in wildlife, nature and the environment? Are you passionate about connecting
disadvantaged young people with nature? Do you want to support them in making a real difference
to their local environment?

We are looking for someone with the drive and skills to become a Blue Mentor for the area of
Dover and Folkestone, leading the Blue Influencers Scheme at Kent Wildlife Trust. In this role
you will support and recruit young people aged 10-14 years old from disadvantaged communities
to identify issues affecting their local environment and support them to take action.

The Blue Influencers Scheme is a programme for environmental youth social action, funded by The
Ernest Cook Trust and the #iwill Fund which will run for three years from January 2024. Blue
Mentors will be hosted by a range of organisations across the UK, providing a network of groups
of young people all taking action to improve their environments and communities.

You:

You will have experience in community organising and/or experience supporting young people to
take environmental action.

Kent Wildlife Trust is the leading wildlife charity for Kent and Medway,
supported by its members and staffed by committed professionals. We are all working to protect
wildlife and to find better ways to run an efficient and effective organisation.

Closing date – 2nd February 2024

Interviews to be held – 14th February 2024