Sipping in cider in the sun, gathering childrens environment wishes and meeting loads of new people sounds like a lot of hard work but Trees for Cities volunteer Sadiya Akram managed to do all that and more at Latitude 2008.  Read her full blog below to find out more…

“Having never volunteered at a festival, nor actually been to a festival, I was open to experiencing new challenges, and am fortunate to say that both aspects of this challenge worked out very well!

In order to raise awareness of its work, the Latitude festival is almost the perfect location for a charity such as Trees for Cities, as the festival is set within a beautiful park which I can only describe as Willy Wonka’s private garden; nature, trees and greenery were a crucial factor to the atmosphere of the festival.

As a volunteer for Trees for Cities, I was required to work for three hours a day at our tent. Raising awareness of Trees for Cities and its various projects was one of our main activities and so we encouraged onlookers to come into the tent and enter our competition to win a tree dedicated to them in one of the charities projects. If people wanted more information about the charities work, we would give them leaflets and also inform them that through entering the competition, we could send them more information about the charity.

The tent was also a welcome space for children. Children were encouraged to decorate paper stencils of insects and to make wishes on the back of them, which were attached to the two trees either side of the tent. Using thread, the staff had created a spider web in the trees and these were soon covered in colourful bees, butterflies and ladybirds, which had wishes relating to the environment on the back of them. The tree wishes ranged from ‘I want more trees on my road’ to ‘ I wish my parents took me to the park more’.

Working only three hours a day meant that I was able to able spend a lot of time simply enjoying good music, taking part in various activities and making lots of friends – as well as sipping lots of cider in the sun!! My personal musical highlights were Sigor Ros, Joanna Newsom and Seasick Steve. Sigor Roz put on quite a spectacle with lots of dancers on stage and the music was almost spiritual. Franz Ferdinand also performed and got everyone dancing. I met lots of lovely people at the festival and made lots of friends, and this was definitely a highlight for me. In the evenings the woods surrounding the forests came alive as there were two DJ stages located there and everyone was dancing until the early hours. The atmosphere in the woods in the evenings was positively electric!

I truly enjoyed working for Trees for Cities at the festival. The other staff who work for the charity as well as other volunteers were all friendly and helpful, understanding at times that I did not know as much about the charities work as others did – and so were always happy to help. I spoke to many different people about their concerns for the environment and feel pleased that I was able to encourage people to take more of an active role in their local environment by engaging with the work that the charity is involved with. Suffice to say, I have learnt a lot about the charity whilst working at the festival, and would be keen to get more involved and indeed, volunteer at future festivals, especially Latitude. Thanks Trees for Cities for a wonderful experience!

Sadiya Akram

Welcome to Trees for Cities make your mark blog space, a place where our 16-25 volunteers keep the world updated on the work they are doing with local communities to tackle global warming, create social cohesion and beautify our cities through tree planting and community education in urban areas of greatest need. 

 Eimear, Volunteer Coordinator, London