Creating an inclusive environment

An inclusive environment is safe in every sense of the word.

When planning the venue of your soil literacy project it is necessary to be informed about the various needs of the participants. Beside the more obvious issues like basic safety or wheelchair access, you must consider if the venue is always easily accessible for everybody. The best way to make sure that the venue is acceptable for every participant is to include them in the planning from the very beginning.

You should also create a space that is not only physically safe, but where all team members can express their opinion, concerns, fears, but also happiness and content. For this, it is of utmost importance to build trust within the group and to set rules together to make proper feedback possible, but only in a constructive, non-obtrusive way. If your students feel passionate about their work, it is very likely that they will have some clashes from time to time. You need to make sure that they learn to communicate their frustration in a respectful way.