Kaska Hempel
Kaska Hempel is a community podcaster and SCCAN Story Weaver passionate about sharing inspiring stories of grassroots climate action and helping others to do so. She has been involved in climate action and communication for over 7 years. She has been producing audio stories for the last 3 years, including podcasts PLANT Voices from Tayport Community Garden and SCCAN’s 1000 Better Stories, and izi.travel walking tours for Tayport and St Andrews.
**Background to Tayport in 2030 piece shortlisted for Sound Walk September Awards 2022**
I am one of the founding members of PLANT and Tayport Community Garden (https://tayportgarden.org/), a part of Tayport Community Trust. I have facilitated climate engagement and community digital storytelling in my own community in Tayport, and others, for the last 7 years. I have supported community members and staff in sharing our stories on a blog, video, podcasts and audio tours.
I believe in using stories to connect people to the place and to each other to help us look together into the past so that we can build courage to step into a better future.
I was inspired to use audio tours for place-based community climate storytelling after my encounter with Swiss ‘My Climate Adventure’ tours on izi.travel walking tour app during my holiday. They offer a way to intimately re/connect us to places we live in or visit, and to explore effect of climate change and imagine the solutions for places we love and care about. This can transform climate crisis and action from a faraway problem to something deeply personal, which makes us more likely to actively contribute to building a better future. Simplicity of the app meant that it was perfectly suited as a community storytelling tool too. I thought it was a perfect tool to share our community vision for Tayport in 2030 with others in our town and beyond.
Last year, I was one the volunteer organisers of the Tayport Climate Festival and the lead for the Visioning Day. I also supported the involvement of Zoe Swann on behalf of PLANT, as she worked with us to put ‘Tayport in 2030 tour’ together. I collated visioning contributions and worked with Kathleen Gray on the text for our ‘Tayport in 2030’ story. I now co-organise Tayport Climate Café.
Since 2021 I have been working as a Story Weaver for Scottish Communities Climate Action Network (SCCAN https://sccan.scot/). SCCAN’s storytelling work focuses on harnessing the power of stories to inspire communities we live in to drive action on climate and biodiversity emergency, and to work for a just, thriving and resilient Scotland. I take care of the 1000 Better Stories podcast, audio storytelling training and support our storytelling mini-grant recipients interested in contributing audio-based stories to our channels. We use Tayport in 2030 as an example of place-based community driven storytelling in our training, to inspire communities across Scotland to share their own visions of the future. Recently, I have worked to combine forces with Walk.Listen.Create in promoting use of sound walks for climate-engaged storytelling by contributing SCCAN funding and mentorship to their new Rise Up Earth mini-grants.
**Background to Tayport in 2030 piece shortlisted for Sound Walk September Awards 2022**
I am one of the founding members of PLANT and Tayport Community Garden (https://tayportgarden.org/), a part of Tayport Community Trust. I have facilitated climate engagement and community digital storytelling in my own community in Tayport, and others, for the last 7 years. I have supported community members and staff in sharing our stories on a blog, video, podcasts and audio tours.
I believe in using stories to connect people to the place and to each other to help us look together into the past so that we can build courage to step into a better future.
I was inspired to use audio tours for place-based community climate storytelling after my encounter with Swiss ‘My Climate Adventure’ tours on izi.travel walking tour app during my holiday. They offer a way to intimately re/connect us to places we live in or visit, and to explore effect of climate change and imagine the solutions for places we love and care about. This can transform climate crisis and action from a faraway problem to something deeply personal, which makes us more likely to actively contribute to building a better future. Simplicity of the app meant that it was perfectly suited as a community storytelling tool too. I thought it was a perfect tool to share our community vision for Tayport in 2030 with others in our town and beyond.
Last year, I was one the volunteer organisers of the Tayport Climate Festival and the lead for the Visioning Day. I also supported the involvement of Zoe Swann on behalf of PLANT, as she worked with us to put ‘Tayport in 2030 tour’ together. I collated visioning contributions and worked with Kathleen Gray on the text for our ‘Tayport in 2030’ story. I now co-organise Tayport Climate Café.
Since 2021 I have been working as a Story Weaver for Scottish Communities Climate Action Network (SCCAN https://sccan.scot/). SCCAN’s storytelling work focuses on harnessing the power of stories to inspire communities we live in to drive action on climate and biodiversity emergency, and to work for a just, thriving and resilient Scotland. I take care of the 1000 Better Stories podcast, audio storytelling training and support our storytelling mini-grant recipients interested in contributing audio-based stories to our channels. We use Tayport in 2030 as an example of place-based community driven storytelling in our training, to inspire communities across Scotland to share their own visions of the future. Recently, I have worked to combine forces with Walk.Listen.Create in promoting use of sound walks for climate-engaged storytelling by contributing SCCAN funding and mentorship to their new Rise Up Earth mini-grants.