Meet the Team
Cleaner Greener East London is coordinated by Paint the Change, an organisation that has created more than 100 community murals around the world. Working with local people in 15 countries, Paint the Change has helped communities co-create public artworks on issues including the right to education, tackling COVID-19 misinformation, disability rights, justice, and climate action.
For Cleaner Greener East London, we've partnered with five community organisations, each delivering projects tailored to the needs and priorities of their local area.
Click on a partner below to discover the inspiring work they're doing across East London.
Christchurch School Community Garden, Greenwich
A parent- and resident-led green space in East Greenwich founded in 2017. Operating as a hub for local environmental networks, the garden features an orchard, a wildlife pond, and sustainable infrastructure such as rain planters and a 900-litre rainwater collection tank.Their Activities as Part of CGEL Project:
Forest School Scheme: Launching an annual outdoor education programme that utilises the garden's Forest School area for 7 weeks, three times per year. This schedule ensures the soil and wildlife have intervals to rest and rejuvenate between sessions.
Artistic Residencies: Integrating art into the heart of the community by bringing together artists, children, and residents to collaborate, create, and beautify shared spaces.
Outdoor Workshops: Hosting a three-year series of 8 workshops per year focused on practical skills related to gardening, food growing, natural systems, and nature appreciation.
Friends of Chandos Road Gardens, Newham.
A group of dedicated, volunteer-led neighborhood group is turning a local green space into a thriving community hub.Their Activities as Part of CGEL Project:
Community Rewilding: Redesigning and transforming Chandos Road Gardens through deep community consultations, resident planting days, and workshops led by a professional gardener.
Green Economy Pathways: Introducing students to environmental career options through practical, hands-on experience in landscape maintenance, seasonal planting, and running a new kitchen and flower garden on school grounds.
Neighbourhood Activations: Hosting a seasonal program of 6 public events, including friendly seed swaps, family storytime sessions, and zero-waste cooking demonstrations.
Re-Instate, Bexley
Re-Instate supports adults with mental health challenges, learning disabilities, and autism. They improve lives through life skills training, employment services, and early intervention initiatives.Their Activities as Part of CGEL Project:
Living Well Programme: Running weekly sessions that combine environmental education and wellbeing, including guided walking groups along the River Thames and creative workshops focused on local ecology.
Community Litter Picks & Eco-Art: Organising regular litter-picking sessions along the River Thames. Selected waste will be upcycled into artworks for an annual public exhibition alongside original drawings, photography, and poetry exploring human impact on the river.
Pathways into the Green Economy: Expanding their Employment Service with a quarterly workshop series, including site visits to sustainability industries and talks from environmental professionals to inspire new career paths.
The Exchange Erith, Bexley
A community-owned arts and crafts organisation based in the magnificent Erith’s historic Old Library. They use the building's legacy to build creative programmes, events, and hands-on workshops that encourage broad civic participation.Their Activities as Part of CGEL Project:
The Pier Commission: Launching a three-year, community-led climate action and public art programme that reclaims Erith Pier as a space for environmental imagination and collective creativity.
Co-Design and Voting (Years 1 & 2): Developing an artistic brief through community workshops, hosting public exhibitions of shortlisted artist proposals, and using community voting to select the final design.
Installation & Learning (Year 3): Hosting 6 open studio days and workshops to assemble the installation with community involvement, culminating in a high-profile launch event featuring performances, talks, and educational activities.
Xenia, Hackney
A women's organisation that fosters connection between migrant and English-speaking women. Operating a non-hierarchical, collaborative model, they focus on community-building, language justice, and cultural inclusion.Their Activities as Part of CGEL Project:
Multilingual Climate Action: Weaving climate literacy into language learning, and co-creating accessible resources like video testimonies, illustrations, and zines to support non-English-speaking households to engage in climate dialogue.
Xenia Kitchen Series: Conducting participatory learning sessions on sustainable food practices in collaboration with the Hackney School of Food, exploring plant routes, ancestral food knowledge, composting, and food justice.
Climate Justice Learning Circles: Hosting monthly multilingual, peer-led groups to discuss the intersection of climate change with gender, race, migration, displacement, and collective care.
The Feast, Tower Hamlets
A youth-focused charity working with young people from diverse and often marginalised communities.They have been working in Tower Hamlets for 12 years, delivering a combination of school based educational programmes, youth encounters and community activities, interfaith and intercultural dialogue initiatives and training and support for adults working with young people. Their Activities as Part of the CGEL Project:
Youth-focused climate dialogue: a series of interactive workshops and lectures in schools across Tower Hamlets exploring themes of climate justice, environmental responsibility and opportunities in the Green economy.
Community Youth Encounters: hosting community-based encounters that bring together young people and local residents from different backgrounds to explore environmental issues collectively.
Co-Creation of Conversation Card Game: Young people participating in workshops and encounters and members of the community will work together to design a Conversation Card Game to facilitate awareness around the climate crisis.