The Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew are both an internationally regarded botanical research institution, and a beautiful botanical garden. Late in 2020, we made a grant towards Kew’s ‘Youth Explainers’ programme, which sees 20 young people train to become volunteer guides in Kew’s Temperate House—the world’s largest Victorian glasshouse and home to 10,000 different plants.
Since they received our grant the Young Explainers have started their training online, met in person for a ‘Christmas at Kew’ celebration, and have developed four original scavenger hunts that they are using to help visitors to explore the Temperate House during their volunteering hours. “‘Corona, lock down, quarantine has been extremely difficult for all of us,” said one participant, “however one of the things that has really helped me enjoy lockdown was the Youth Explainer Programme that has given me a something to look forward to during the weekend”.
Our partnership with Kew Gardens on this programme runs in to 2022 and we very much look forward to hearing more about the success stories of the Youth Explainers. More detailed information about this programme can be found here.