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EKC Broadstairs College picked up gold, while EKC Dover College brought home bronze.
The Wilder Kent Awards, which are run by the Kent Wildlife Trust, celebrate and recognise the work that schools, community groups, businesses, and local government do to help create a more climate-resilient county and to support local wildlife.
EKC Broadstairs College’s win follows the creation of Kent’s first artificial swift colony. Facilitated through the installation of seven swift boxes in collaboration with the RSPB and Get Wild, the project marks another step in the college’s commitment to sustainability.
Sarah Benfield, Assistant Principal at EKC Broadstairs College, says that it’s great that students and staff work so hard on their approach to sustainability that it can be recognised by an award.
She said: “This year’s award is particularly important to Broadstairs as we have maintained our gold, which reflects the long-term approach the college has to its projects.”
Although the award celebrates previous long-standing projects, it also recognises the new sustainability initiatives that EKC Broadstairs College has implemented in the last year.
“Our focus over the last year has been on recycling and upcycling, with the installation of our new Rydan composter, and embedding our Thrift Pop-Up shop, and Uniform Give-Back schemes,” Sarah added.
“We’ve also worked on community projects like working with the Wilderness to Wonderland organisation, to re-wild with native species in different areas around Thanet, such as outside Margate Train Station.”
EKC Dover College took home bronze for its continued efforts to build a more sustainable, wilder campus.
Over the past year, the college has focused on making improvements across the site, by upgrading windows to be more efficient, installing solar panels, cutting single-use plastics where possible and more.
“We’ve been working with our estates team to create a wilder campus, especially with our rare chalk stream river that runs through our campus,” said Summer Smith, the Student Experience Officer at EKC Dover College.
“We’ve also worked with some amazing organisations, and done lots of workshops with our students, a particular highlight of which was the junk band.
“I feel very proud, for a very little college we were able to achieve a lot in a year, and our students have worked so incredibly hard on top of what they do in their classes.”
Award wins like this celebrate the positive change that learners across EKC Group help to implement every day.
Through sustainability objectives, students have the opportunity to implement real change in the communities in which they live, work, and study.
