Maxwell Ayamba of SEM recentrly contributed to ‘Out of Bounds – Equity in access to urban nature” a national report published in May 2021. Produced by Groundwork, the multi agency report is an “overview of the evidence on equity in urban green spaces”. This important report, like the work of SEM, makes critical connections between social justice and public spaces, community cohesion and health inequalities.

The report provides more evidence of the need and benefits of improving access to public ‘green’ spaces (parks, nature reserves, community gardens, city farms, and woodland) and public ‘blue’ spaces (rivers, lakes, ponds, canals and the sea), for disadvantaged communities.

You can read the report on the Groundwork website.

Groundwork is a federation of charities working locally and nationally to transform lives in the UK’s most disadvantaged communities.

Maxwell will be one of the keynote speakers at “Whose Landscapes?” a national symposium organised by the University of Reading on Tuesday March 30th

Whose Landscapes?: a virtual interdisciplinary symposium hosted by the Changing Landscapes Research Network – its a free online symposium any anyone can attend.

The symposium will explore diversity, in terms of both the extent of accessibility for different groups of people and landscape decision-making, with an aim to develop conversations and build interdisciplinary bridges. The focus of the Changing Landscapes, Changing Lives project is to explore biographical and narrative perspectives to the landscape and this approach has the potential to open up our understanding of landscape to a wider range of voices.

Please register for the symposium via Eventbrite.

An Interview with Maxwell – The Times Newspaper.

On 25th February a news article featuring and interview with SEM’s Maxwell Ayamba was published in The Times Newspaper.

Written by the newspapers’ Chief News Correspondent David Brown, the article was a response to a previous days article about Jurassic Coast beachgoers last summer after the last UK lockdown had ended.

Maxwell, SEM Project Coordinator and Founder, spoke about ‘white privileged spaces’ the lack of cultural understanding and as he responded to reporting which blamed ‘culturally diverse’ and ‘urban’ crowds for littering and vandalism on a Dorset beach.

You can read the article on The Times Newspaper website here.