Educating and Engaging Tomorrow’s Friends

It’s the generations to come who will be most affected by the environmental decisions and actions we take now.

Introducing children to local wildlife, outdoor habitats and seascapes provides vital first steps towards real engagement with their natural environment, stirring their interest early and then nurturing greater understanding as they progress through their primary school years.

The Friends shares this mindset with Chichester Harbour Conservancy. Tying in their Education Centre based at Dell Quay and our support of free field trips and primary school workshops, another productive collaboration has taken shape.

Examples of activities enabled by funding from the Friends of Chichester Harbour:

  • Junior Conservancy: debating workshops around coastal themes with four local schools

  • Winter Welly Walks: learning about wetland birds and habitats

  • Harbour School: starting at gates of three schools and walking to the water for related activities

  • Art and Photography Workshops: partnering photographers and artists with schools

  • Plastics in the Ocean Workshops: presentations taken into schools to consider the effects of plastic pollution

  • Nature Writing Workshops: full day events with Bourne Community College for secondary school ages

  • Travel Grant: assistance with travel costs for school trips

  • Get A-Float: free trips for school children on the Solar Heritage boat:

Such support for the Conservancy’s educational programmes has been underway for some time but was boosted significantly in June 2022 when the Friends committed a further investment of £30,000 over three years to fund various projects that will benefit school children, particularly those that might not have access to a number of experiences otherwise.

Student Membership

Many approaching adulthood are rightly concerned about the issues they will be left to resolve if looming threats aren’t addressed ahead of time. At Friends of Chichester Harbour we are keen to enlist younger members so that together we can support the causes being shaped for the long-term sustainability of the natural world around us. To this end, free membership  is offered to full-time students.

  • Did You Know?

    It’s thanks to a 12-year-old boy in 1958 that windsurfing took flight and Hayling Island became known as the sport’s birthplace. Peter Chilvers is credited for inventing the first sail-powered surfboard and becoming the world’s first windsurfer. Living until 2015, inventor and engineer Chilvers did much to promote sailing, windsurfing and Hayling Island.